Spellbound
by ausllydawmoon
Summary: Ally Dawson is a Scientist, and a prodigy at that. This means she has the sense to refuse to believe in Magicians, the other race of humans that supposedly used to live among the Scientists until they were killed off because they were too dangerous to society. But everything she thought she knew turns upside down when she meets a mysterious blond boy whose hair can turn into fire.
1. Chapter 1

She lets her mind wander as she takes notes out of her history textbook. She knows the story; she's heard it every year for as long as she can remember. But her teacher continues to lecture about the importance of this point in their country's history, and as much as she tries, she can't force herself to ignore him.

"We were founded through a peace between Scientists and Magicians – the first official peace negotiation of the time. After that, dozens of other countries followed suit and the Scientists and Magicians made peace. Then, the Magicians refused to adhere to the rules set for the safety of all, and they continued to practice their magic with no limits. Scientists were being killed left and right because of their unpredictable magic, and finally a war broke out. The Scientists ruling America had no choice but to execute the Magicians, or it would have been the end of the Scientists. Now, Magicians are extinct in America, and we are a fully Scientist country. Because of this, we are the most prosperous country in the world. Miss Dawson, are you paying attention?"

She looks up from her notes. "Yes, Dr. Watson. I was just taking notes on the lecture."

He nods and goes back to his lesson. She continues making notes, glad that she chose to become a Psychology Specialist rather than a Scientist History Specialist like she had planned when she was younger.

When class lets out, she prepares for the inevitable flood of questions.

"Ally, were you really not paying attention in class?" Trish asks her, catching up to her in the hallway. "You're a prodigy. I didn't think that was possible."

"I just don't believe in all those Magician stories," she says.

"You know you're my best friend and I don't doubt your intelligence considering you're one of the smartest scientists in the _world_ , but – "

"The term 'best friend' is a bit ridiculous. What makes me significantly better than your other friends? I suppose I'm smarter, but in that case 'smartest friend' would be the most appropriate term," Ally points out.

Trish exhales, and Ally senses a bit of frustration in her face. "Right. My point is, it's completely illogical for you to _not_ believe in Magicians. They were real. They still live in other parts of the world. There's evidence that shows that they really do exist."

"Trish, it's all just one complex story adults tell children to get them to focus on becoming better Scientists. 'If you don't study, the Magicians will come cast a spell on you.' Things like that."

"Well, we're seventeen, and we're still hearing about them."

"We aren't technically adults yet."

Trish sighs again. "There's no winning an argument with you."

"Because my positions are better supported."

"It's really hard to be friends with you sometimes."

"Then why are you? Friendship is supposed to be about connecting with other people in an easy environment. If you feel that I don't provide that for you – "

" _Ally_ ," Trish interrupts. "Can't you just shed the skepticism and be _human_ for a while?"

"Being human is about gaining knowledge."

"Being human is about _living_."

"And living is about gaining knowledge. Therefore, being human is about gaining knowledge."

By the time Trish finally decides to talk to her again, their friend Dez has already caught up with them and they're halfway to his house.

"I think being a Magician would be cool," Dez says.

"Being a Magician would mean you'd be killed," Trish tells him.

"Being a Magician would mean you wouldn't exist," Ally says.

Dez rolls his eyes. "This again. We go through this _every time_ Magicians come up. Why don't you think they're real?"

"Because it's absolutely absurd to think that human beings can possess special powers that allow them to manipulate the world and other people however they'd like."

"How come? We can do that. We can grow hundred-foot trees in a week. We can hook people up to a machine that allows us to see exactly what they're thinking. We can cure any disease out there."

"Through _science_. Not by waving our hands around and muttering gibberish."

Dez knits his eyebrows. "That's not how it works."

"Oh, and suddenly _you're_ a Magician expert?"

"I'm going to be a History Specialist, so kinda, yeah. Why are you being so defensive?"

"I'm not being defensive," she tells him.

"You seem pretty defensive," Trish says.

"Who's the Psychology Specialist here? I'm not defensive!" she exclaims.

She storms ahead of them on the sidewalk, clenching her jaw in frustration.

Dez's house is finally in view just when she's about to yell at Trish and Dez for their loud whispering behind her. But she gets distracted by a person on the side of Dez's house, kneeling on the ground. She knits her eyebrows as they get closer, trying to figure out who this stranger may be and why they're at her friend's house, but all she manages to see is that the stranger is a blond boy before he gets up and darts behind the house.

She decides to shrug it off; she has much more important things to worry about.

* * *

It isn't until she sees him in the same spot two more times when she finally asks Dez if he knows what's going on.

"Dez, do you know that boy who's been outside your house a couple times when we come home from school?"

Dez frowns, his eyebrows scrunching together in confusion. "What boy?"

"Well, I don't know. He has blond hair. It seems like he's doing something on the ground on the side of your house."

Dez shrugs. "Don't know him. Maybe he's doing a study on my grass or something."

"Yeah…maybe," Ally says. But she isn't the slightest bit convinced that that's what's going on.

"Ally, let it go. Not everything is an equation for you to solve," Trish pipes up.

"Yeah. Hey, how about, instead of arguing, we all do homework instead? We all love homework," Dez suggests.

"Fine," Trish says.

Dez nods. "I'll go get my textbooks."

He walks off down the hall.

"Um, I'm gonna go use the restroom," Ally tells Trish.

Then she follows Dez.

Dez's facial expression looked like he was hiding something, and the tone of his voice was fluctuating way too much for him to have been telling the truth about getting textbooks. She's a Psychology Specialist _prodigy_ ; Dez couldn't have actually thought he'd get away with lying to her.

Sure enough, Dez walks past his bedroom and out the back door. Fortunately, he leaves the door slightly ajar and she's able to peek out of it. But all she sees is her redheaded friend standing in the middle of the clearing behind his house, staring at the edge of the woods a few yards away.

"You're gonna get us both killed," he says to the trees. "Probably our families too. I'm not a good liar, and my friend's getting suspicious. She keeps seeing you."

A figure walks out from the darkness of the forest and stands at the edge of the trees, looking at Dez. Sure enough, it's the blond boy Ally's been seeing outside Dez's house.

She sets her jaw in frustration.

"I'm sorry," the blond says. "I've just been waiting for you to finish school like always, but it gets kinda lonely in a dark forest with the same group of people all the time. I wanted a change of scenery."

"Then _make_ a change of scenery, dude. You can literally create _waterfalls_ out of thin air!"

Ally knits her eyebrows, wondering if she heard him right. Maybe this boy is an Earth Specialist or something.

The blond boy looks down and mutters something she can't hear. But Dez seems to relax a bit after hearing it.

"Look, buddy, I know it's tough for you. But – "

Ally doesn't hear the rest of his sentence. All she knows is that Dez just called this boy 'buddy' after saying he doesn't know him, and Scientists are supposed to tell the truth.

" _Hey_!" she exclaims, opening the door loudly.

Dez yelps and turns around, and the blond boy jumps, his eyes widening to the size of saucers.

But what makes Ally freeze in her tracks is the blazing fire that spontaneously starts on top of the blond boy's head.

Dez looks at the boy, and he yelps again. The blond boy's eyes shift up, and they widen even more, which Ally didn't think was possible. Then he looks at her, and then he runs.

He disappears into the forest before Ally can even process what's going on.

"What just happened?" she asks Dez when she recovers from her shock.

Dez swallows. "What do you mean?"

"That boy you said you didn't know was just talking to you. And then his hair caught on fire. And then he ran away."

"Ally, I think you're hallucinating," Dez tells her. "Maybe all this talk of Magicians in history lately has got you all worked up."

"Dez, don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying. Let's just…go inside. Trish is probably ready to yell at us."

Dez brushes past her and walks back inside the house, leaving Ally standing alone in the clearing, staring at the edge of the woods and trying to figure out if the smoke she smells is all in her mind.

* * *

 **hey hi hello remember when i used to write multichaps that were actually good? well, IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN YAYYYYY! i'm honestly so excited for this story and i think it's gonna be my best one yet soooooo i hope you guys enjoy it as well! thanks for reading!**

 **also i'm so sorry for deleting shattering deadlights with no warning. the truth is that i just couldn't bring myself to write it anymore and i honestly dreaded writing because of it, and then this idea came along and i knew that my time would be better spent if i just got rid of shattering deadlights and focused on this. so yeah sorry again...but hopefully this story makes up for it! :D**

 **p.s. thank you normah for this beautiful cover and thank you lexy for helping me with ideas! i love youuuuuu**


	2. Chapter 2

As hard as she tries to convince herself that she has more important things to think about than the boy whose hair can spontaneously catch on fire, she finds that he's pretty much _all_ she can think about. Well, him and Dez, because she just can't wrap her head around the fact that Dez is hiding something. Scientists don't _hide_ things. They shouldn't have any reason to.

It doesn't help that Dez is pretending like nothing happened. Anytime she tries to bring it up, he looks at her like she's speaking a foreign language and tells her he has no idea what she's talking about. But Dez isn't a good liar, and just the fact that he's denying it is enough to tell her that she's onto something her friend doesn't want her knowing about.

That makes her both angry and slightly terrified.

She's known Dez her whole life. He shouldn't be hiding anything at all, but even if he _did_ have a secret, it must be something huge if he doesn't even want her knowing.

Unfortunately, she can't ask Trish what she thinks about the whole thing because she's completely in the dark. She knows that if she's going to get anything out of Dez, she has to be the only one who knows anything about his secret.

The worst part about all of this is that as one of the most intelligent Scientists in the world, she _hates_ not knowing things. This secret may as well be killing her.

"Are you okay?" Trish asks her as they walk to Dez's house after school.

Ally shakes her head quickly to try to clear her thoughts. "I'm fine," she says. "Just…thinking."

"You've been doing a lot of that lately," Trish notes. "More than you normally do with your robot mind."

"I'm still not a robot."

"I know. But you sure act like one." Trish grins and shoves her shoulder gently before running ahead to catch up with Dez.

Ally sighs and continues walking behind them in silence.

When they get to Dez's house, she keeps her eyes peeled for the blond boy, but she doesn't see him. He must've been completely scared off when she caught him talking to Dez.

They walk inside, and she's immediately on edge when she hears rustling in the kitchen. But then Dez's mother pokes her head into the room.

"Welcome home," she says, her voice just barely lively enough to be above a monotone. "How was school?"

"Fine," Dez replies, tossing his backpack on the couch.

Dez's mother offers them the faintest hint of a smile. "That's nice," she says. "Would one of you please go pick some tomatoes from the vegetable garden out back?"

"I'll do it," Ally offers. She needs to try harder to clear her thoughts.

Dez's mother nods, and Ally walks down the hall.

She wonders if her voice is the same almost-monotone as all the adults' voices are. Maybe that's why Trish and Dez always call her a robot.

She walks out to the back yard and stops before walking to the vegetable garden a few feet to her left. She stares out at the clearing and the edge of the woods where she _knows_ she saw the interaction between Dez and that boy with fire for hair.

Just as she's about to mentally scold herself for utterly failing at clearing her head of questions about that secret, she hears something.

She immediately turns her head in the direction of the sound, but all she sees is the hedge next to the wall of the house. She frowns a bit and walks over to it, because she has enough to worry about without being curious about this sound.

One of the setbacks of being a Scientist: curiosity can almost never go ignored.

As she gets closer to the hedge, she notices that it's quivering, and that the sound was just the leaves rustling louder than usual. But there isn't enough wind for that to make sense.

Sure enough, she sees a flash of blond hair behind the hedge. She sets her jaw and marches closer, leaning over the hedge so she can see him better.

"A – _ha_!" she exclaims, pulling back the branches and looking down at him.

The boy yelps and jumps into a standing position, his hair ablaze yet again. This time, he seems to notice it immediately, and he squeezes his eyes shut as if he's in pain. The fire disappears, leaving his blond hair shining in the sunlight as if nothing happened.

Ally takes a step back, unsure of whether to feel shocked, confused, or terrified. But she ultimately decides to swallow her emotions – because emotions won't get her any closer to answers – and look up at him.

"Who _are_ you?" she asks.

"Uh…that depends," he says, his voice giving away his fear. "Who are _you_?"

"Someone whose hair doesn't randomly catch on fire."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

She takes a step closer to him. "Who. Are. You?" she asks again.

"Just…don't worry about it," the boy says. He moves to step over the hedge and get past her, but she grabs both his wrists to stop him.

"Clearly you know my friend. And my friend has been trying to convince me that you don't exist. So I would really like to know who you are and why my friend feels the need to keep you a secret when we're all supposed to be telling the truth."

The boy pulls his wrists out of her grasp and opens his mouth to say something, but he's interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Both of them snap their heads in that direction to see Dez walk outside.

As soon as he sees the two of them, his eyes widen. "Uh – oh," he says nervously.

"Uh – oh is right," Ally says. "Would you like to finally tell me what's going on?"

Dez shakes his head. Meanwhile, the boy takes advantage of Ally being distracted and hops over the hedge to get away from her.

She's about to follow him, but she gets surprised and stops when he faces her again. He starts making strange arm motions: first, he acts like he's hugging someone, and then he pushes both his hands from the middle of his chest outward until his arms are fully extended, with his palms facing her. Then he turns and runs over to Dez.

She frowns and starts running over to them, but she suddenly runs into something and falls over. Rubbing her now-throbbing head, she looks up to see what she didn't see in front of her. Except…there's nothing there.

She knits her eyebrows and stands up. She reaches her hand out, and sure enough, she feels a smooth, hard surface in front of her, like glass. But there's _nothing_ there.

"What's going on?" she calls to the boys. "Dez!"

Dez glances over at her nervously while the blond boy continues talking to him quietly. He says a few things back, but again Ally can't hear what he says.

The blond boy must say something Dez doesn't like, because he suddenly exclaims, "Well, what choice do we have?!"

The blond boy winces and closes his eyes, his hair bursting into flames again for a split second before immediately going back to normal. He opens his eyes and looks at the ground, muttering something Ally can't hear.

"She isn't gonna stop bothering me about this," Dez says, his voice still loud with his evident frustration. "Especially not when you keep catching on _fire_! This is why you aren't supposed to come out here!"

The blond boy doesn't say anything, and his gaze remains trained on the ground.

Dez looks over at Ally again, and then he mutters something. The blond boy makes a half-hearted hand motion starting with an open hand and moving it left while simultaneously clenching it into a fist. Ally swallows and reaches her hand out.

She doesn't feel anything.

She hesitantly walks over to the two boys. The blond boy still hasn't looked up from the ground.

"Ally, I'm about to tell you something, and it's kind of a big deal. Just…please don't freak out," Dez says.

"I want to know the truth," she tells him.

He glances at the blond boy with what looks like _guilt_ written across his features.

"I know," he says. "I'm going to tell you the truth."

She nods and looks at him expectantly.

He takes a deep breath. "Ally, this is Austin. Austin Moon. He's…a Magician."

She looks at the blond boy, whose name is apparently Austin Moon, and then at Dez again. "Magicians don't exist."

"Yes they do," Dez says calmly. "They're just in hiding because they'd be killed if they weren't."

"I…guess that makes sense," Ally says. "I suppose with all the evidence, I can accept that Magicians really do exist. But I'm going to have to turn you both in."

Austin's head snaps up. "You – what?"

"Magicians aren't supposed to be in this country. They're dangerous."

"Ally, did you not just hear me? If you turn him in, they'll kill him!" Dez exclaims.

"That isn't my concern," she says. "But this is illegal, and I have to report it."

"They'll kill me too, Ally! And probably my family!" Dez says. "You can't – "

"Dez, I have to."

She starts walking back towards the house, but she runs into a wall of nothing again. She exhales and turns around to face Austin, who looks terrified. He looks at Dez.

"Dez, I can't let your friend turn me in."

Dez sighs. "I know you can't, buddy."

Austin swallows nervously and walks over to Ally. She clenches her jaw and backs away from him until she runs into the invisible wall.

"I _have_ to report you, Austin Moon. There's nothing you can do about it."

He doesn't say anything, but he grabs her wrist tightly.

"Let go of me," she says, trying to free herself from his grip.

"I'm sorry," Austin says to Dez, his voice a mixture of fear and guilt.

"Do what you have to do," Dez sighs.

Ally knits her eyebrows. "You killing me is not going to help your case."

Suddenly the fear melts away from Austin's features and he looks at her incredulously. "Kill you? Are you kidding?"

She stares up at him.

"I'm not gonna _kill_ you," he says. "Just – "

"Will you just _go_ before more people find out about you or she decides to scream?" Dez interrupts.

Austin looks over at him, swallowing nervously and nodding his head. Then he tugs on Ally's wrist and starts running across the clearing towards the forest.

Ally tries to get free, but she stumbles and finds she has no choice but to follow him.

"So you're just kidnapping me?" she asks, breathing heavily from the running.

"You didn't give me much of a choice," he says, seeming unbothered.

She starts coughing, not used to physical activity as strenuous as sprinting through the woods. Austin glances behind him and then slows to a stop, his grip still tight on her wrist.

After a few seconds, he makes an impatient noise and wraps her arm around his shoulders, grabbing her waist and letting go of her wrist.

"Excuse me!" she exclaims, jumping away from him.

She realizes that she's completely free a split second too late. Before she can even start running, she's suddenly tossed up in the air. She cries out in surprise and finds that she never hits the ground again; instead, she remains suspended in the air, staring down at Austin, who is simply watching her from the ground.

"How are you doing that?" she asks him.

"I'm a Magician," he tells her. "It's what we do."

"But _how_?"

"I'm just manipulating the air," he says, sounding mildly impatient. "Basically creating a concentrated spot of wind blowing in a certain direction at a certain speed."

"Well…stop it," she tells him.

"I can't. You'll run."

"Because you're _kidnapping_ me."

"Because you're going to get me killed!" he exclaims.

She crosses her arms, and he sighs.

"Just…shut up at least until we get home," he says.

"Home?" she asks hesitantly.

"Home," he repeats with a nod.

Suddenly, he's suspended in the air next to her, and then he's holding her wrist again and they're zipping through the forest without even touching the ground. She can feel the wind blowing them along now, and she feels its path change so they avoid running into trees.

She closes her eyes, feeling a bit sick.

And then just as soon as it started, it's over. She feels the ground beneath her feet again, and her nausea subsides. She opens her eyes again and finds herself in what looks like a small town in the middle of the forest.

"What…?" she wonders.

"Welcome home," Austin tells her hesitantly, still holding onto her wrist.

There are buildings lining what seems to be a common square in the large clearing they're standing in. She sees other buildings – which look like small houses – peeking out between the trees surrounding the clearing. Signs on the buildings around her advertise a grocery store, a couple of restaurants, a doctor's office, a school, and other places that would typically be found in a town. She even sees a playground tucked away in the trees.

There are people bustling around, some carrying children, others chatting with friends, and still others staring at lists, presumably of things they need to do. It all seems so…civilized.

"How…how is all of this possible?" she asks in wonder. "You're in the middle of the woods. There's no way – "

"The Architects built everything, if that answers your question," Austin says, sounding slightly impatient.

"What Architects?" Ally asks, looking at him again.

"Architect Magicians," he tells her. "Every Magician has certain powers, like you Scientists excel at certain fields. The Architect Magicians built the town, the Camouflage Magicians own all the stores because they can get into the city for products without being seen, Healers are the doctors, obviously – "

"What are you?" she asks him.

"You mean, what are my powers?"

She nods, overcome with curiosity as this new influx of information swarms her mind.

"I'm a Nature Magician. Only one here."

"How come?"

"Nature magic is super rare. All the other powers are usually passed down genetically, but no one knows how Nature Magicians get their powers."

"I'm sure I could find out."

"Oh yeah? Why's that?"

"Because I'm a Scientist. Finding things out and helping society is what we do, while you Magicians are off setting things on fire."

Austin sets his jaw, and Ally notices smoke rolling off his hair. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"It means that Magicians are clearly destructive."

"Magicians learn to control their powers by the time we're five years old."

"Oh, so you're _intentionally_ setting your hair on fire?" she asks him.

He presses his lips together and looks away from her, the smoke disappearing from his hair. " _Most_ Magicians learn to control their powers before they're five," he mutters. "I…am not one of them."

"Yeah? And why's that?"

"Because Nature magic is a lot more powerful than other magic, which makes it harder to control. And don't go thinking you understand something you didn't even _believe_ in twenty minutes ago," he snaps.

Then, without saying anything else, he tugs on her arm and drags her across the clearing to the woods and begins walking down a path lined with the houses she saw when they first arrived.

"Where are we going?" she asks him.

He remains silent as he walks up to the front door of one of the houses and leads her inside, shutting the door behind them and locking it.

"Austin?" Ally hears a woman's voice from further inside the house.

"Yeah, Mom," Austin calls back halfheartedly. "It's me."

A blonde woman, who Ally assumes is Austin's mother, walks into the room, smiling. But as soon as her eyes land on Ally, her smile fades slightly.

"Who's this?" she asks politely. "I don't recognize her from around town."

Austin glances at her and takes a deep breath. "Mom, this is Ally. We have a slight problem."

His mother raises her eyebrows. "You're worrying me."

"She's a Scientist," Austin says.

His mother swallows, looking worried now. She looks at Ally warily.

"Your son kidnapped me," she says.

Now Austin's mother looks at him.

"I was trying to get Dez's attention to talk to him but then she found me and my hair caught on fire so Dez told her the truth and then she said she was gonna turn us in so I didn't have a choice!" he explains quickly.

"You Magicians aren't allowed to be here. What happens to you isn't my concern, but – "

"They'll _kill_ us!" Austin yells at her. "You can't turn us in!" He looks at his mother. "Mom, just make her not turn us in!"

His mother takes a deep breath. "You know my powers don't work like that, honey. Why don't we all just sit down and talk this out?"

"I want to go home," Ally says.

Just then, the door opens and a middle-aged man, who is probably Austin's father, walks in. He freezes when he sees Ally, and then a worried look crosses his face.

"We're trying to take care of it, Dad," Austin says before his father even opens his mouth.

"She wants to turn us in," his father says.

"Yeah, we know," Austin replies.

"How did you – "

"What are we supposed to do with her?" Austin interrupts Ally, looking at his mother. "She's gonna turn us in if she goes back."

"Well, we can't just keep her locked up here," his mother says. "That's kidnapping!"

"It's not like we have much of a choice!" Austin exclaims.

His mother takes a deep breath and looks at Ally. "Sweetie, I promise we aren't hurting anyone here. All of this can just disappear if you – "

"I refuse to break the law," Ally says. "You people should turn _yourselves_ in if you believe you're such saints."

"They'll _kill_ us – " Austin repeats.

"Listen, Ally," his mother interrupts him. "You seem like a very nice girl – "

"I am," she says. "Which is why I respect the law and need to turn you people in."

Austin's mother sighs and looks at his father, who shakes his head, apparently at a loss for what to do.

So they decide to keep her with them until they figure out their next move.

She tries to run as soon as Austin falls asleep that night, but she gets lost in the woods for a bit and he finds her and brings her back home before she's able to navigate her way back to Dez's house.

That's when she finds out that his powers extend to communication with animals, which means he's got every creature in the vicinity watching out for her attempts to escape and reporting back to him so he can stop her.

It doesn't make sense, but at this point, nothing makes sense anymore.

* * *

 **so i know i dumped a BUNCH of information on you in the past few chapters and if i remember correctly there's a lot more coming, so if you have any questions or anything you're confused about, PLEASE feel free to ask me either in the reviews or over PM, and i'll answer any and all questions in my author's notes after each chapter! i hope i'm doing a good enough job of explaining things and how they work (especially all the Magician stuff) in the actual story, but i know my writing is far from perfect and i don't want any of you to be confused and be discouraged from reading because of it so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE come to me with all your questions and i'll answer them! thank you so much for reading and i hope you continue to enjoy the story! :D**


	3. Chapter 3

In the five days she's spent so far among the Magicians – albeit against her will – she's learned that they really aren't all that bad. Most of them are quite nice, except Austin, who always seems to be in a bad mood.

Austin's parents treat her like a guest instead of a hostage, and she's grown to like them, as much as a Scientist can like Magicians. She's learned that Austin's mother's power is that of mind control, but she's never used it on Ally. Her abilities make her the perfect police chief, although there isn't any crime at all in their little Magician town. Austin's father is a Telepath, which means he's always reading the minds of everyone around him. He's the principal of the one school in the town, and he's just intimidating enough to be perfect for the job.

Austin takes her on all the errands he has to run around town while his parents are working, so she's met most of the adults here. They've all been pleasant and friendly, but her trained Psychology Specialist's eye can always tell that they're wary of her. They all know she's a Scientist; word travels fast here.

She takes as many notes as she can about the Magicians, their powers, and their way of life. The first day or two, she was doing it for her police report when she finally manages to escape. But now, she feels like she's doing it more for herself, so she can learn as much as she can about these fascinating people.

When she's not running errands with Austin or taking notes, she's usually helping Austin's parents around the house. She's just finished helping Austin's father make breakfast when Austin comes dragging his feet down the stairs, rubbing his eyes.

"You're up early," his father says.

The blond shrugs and yawns before plopping down in a seat at the table.

"Don't you have to go to school?" Ally asks.

"I haven't been to school since you've been here, have I?" he says.

"Well, I just figured it was because you were under too much stress because of me."

Austin shakes his head. "I don't go to school."

"Why not?"

"The teachers refused to teach me because I can't control my powers and it disrupts their classes, and my dad agrees."

Ally looks over at Mike, and he nods.

"So my dad homeschooled me, and I graduated last year," Austin finishes while Mike sets a plate of scrambled eggs in front of him.

Ally brings her breakfast to the table and sits across from the blond.

"I have to go to a Healer today," he says to her. "Wanna come?"

She nods, eager to learn more. And because she doesn't have much of a choice, considering he doesn't trust her to be alone at his house.

So after they eat their breakfast, they go back upstairs to get ready and then they set off for the Healer.

They walk in silence, as per usual, because Austin isn't all that pleasant to talk to. But she can tell he's nervous – if the look on his face isn't enough, the trail of small flowers that sprout up behind him after every step say it all. She glances behind them at all the daisies, wildflowers, and daffodils popping up, and she wonders if he even notices.

"What're you looking at?" he asks, looking over at her coldly.

She realizes she was staring at him, lost in her thoughts. "You," she replies honestly, because unlike Dez, _she_ tells the truth like Scientists are supposed to.

Yes, she's still mad about that.

"Why?"

"You seem nervous."

"Well, I bet you just know everything," he says, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"I'm a Psy-"

"You told me."

"You're also growing a garden behind you," she notes.

He glances behind them and curses under his breath, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.

Ally watches the flowers expectantly, but nothing happens.

"What're you doing?" she asks.

"Trying to calm down."

"So you _are_ nervous."

"A little."

"Why?"

"I don't like these appointments."

"How come? They're called Healers."

"It's…complicated. You'll see when we get there, and then you'll talk about it the whole way home like you know everything when you actually don't."

"You think you've got me all figured out, don't you?" she asks him, tilting her head.

"I _know_ I have you all figured out."

"That's impossible. As a being of higher intelligence, your mind can't physically comprehend – "

"Would you _stop_ with all that talk for once?" he asks.

"I don't understand."

He rolls his eyes and keeps walking in silence, wisps of smoke rolling off his hair.

She presses her lips in a tight line and follows him into the Healer's office.

Austin tells her to sit in the small waiting room while he walks up to the desk. She can't hear what he says to the man sitting there, but the nervous expression doesn't leave his face. The conversation is short, and Austin sits down next to her to wait for the Healer.

He stares down at his feet, bouncing his leg nervously.

Ally resists the urge to ask questions. While no Scientist would be offended at her desire for information, she's learned that Magicians put emotions first and intelligence second. She still isn't quite sure what kinds of questions are off limits, but she can tell that Austin isn't in the mood for talking. She wonders why he brought her here to begin with; his parents are home, and he clearly doesn't want to be around her.

She decides to focus on a different subject.

"Am I ever going home?" she asks him.

"If you go home, will you turn us in?" he asks, unfazed.

"Yes."

"Then no."

Just then, the woman she presumes is the Healer walks into the room.

"Austin?" she says in a voice that reminds Ally of a spring breeze.

Austin looks up and swallows, rising to his feet. He follows the Healer wordlessly.

Ally wonders how many tiny flowers are sprouting under the floor right now under Austin's feet.

* * *

Austin refuses to answer any of Ally's questions about his appointment as they walk out of the office. But she notices that he seems a bit dizzy and almost…calmer.

He leads her to the grocery store on his mother's orders, and as they're walking in something strikes her.

"How come none of you Magicians have tried to kill me?" she asks Austin.

He looks over at her. "What?"

"I mean, human actions are never complete guarantees. The only way to be absolutely positive you won't get in trouble because of me is to kill me, but no one here has even tried."

"Because we don't kill people."

"Your magic – "

"I told you all that stuff you learned about us being murderers was a myth," he tells her. "You guys killed us off, remember?"

"Because you – "

"Look, I don't wanna do this with you right now, okay?" he says, putting food into the bag he's carrying. "Please."

She sighs and nods, wanting nothing more than to just go home and fix this mess.

"Will you tell me what the Healer did to you now?" she asks after they've finished at the store and start walking back to the house.

"Why do you care?"

"I'm curious."

He sighs. "She just has a spell that makes me more relaxed to help control my powers."

"I've noticed that your magic only acts out when you're experiencing strong emotions, like fear or anxiety," Ally notes.

"Uh…yeah," he says. "I just have an appointment once a month to try to get that under control."

"Does it help?"

He shrugs. "Not really. But something is better than nothing."

She nods. "I'm sure you'll learn to control them eventually."

He glances over at her, raising his eyebrows. "Are you…comforting me?"  
"You've been practicing controlling your powers for almost your entire life so far. Statistically, practicing something that much would eventually lead to mastery. So if the facts comfort you, then yes, I suppose I am."

He blinks at her. "I don't understand you."

"Probably because I'm far more intelligent than you."

"No, I understand what you just said. What I _don't_ understand is how you act so much like a robot. Do you even experience emotion?"

"Well, of course I do. I just don't let my emotions affect me because they get in the way of my search for knowledge. It's what Scientists are supposed to do, although my generation seems to be headed in a slightly different direction."

"You mean you're the only Scientist your age who acts like this?"

"I'm sure other prodigies know the disadvantage of allowing their emotions to affect them, but my friends aren't prodigies, so unfortunately I have to deal with their emotions."

"You have friends?" he asks, walking into the house in front of her.

"Of course I do. Human interaction is necessary for the best health and wellbeing."

"Ah," he says. But there's a tone in his voice that she doesn't quite understand.

"What?" she asks him.

"I just think it's…fitting that you only have friends for the health benefits, not because you actually enjoy spending time with them."

"I do enjoy spending time with them," she says, tilting her head. "I don't understand."

He sighs, shaking his head. "Just forget it."

* * *

 _Went to a Healer with Austin today. She puts a calming spell on him to try to help him control his powers. Theory that his powers become uncontrollable when he experiences strong emotions seems to be correct. He did not want to talk about the appointment – his inability to control his powers seems to be an emotional subject for him._

 _Magicians do not seem like the killers they were in history. Must turn them in to abide by law, but will however do more research on the matter of their history, culture, people, and legitimacy of the claim that they are a threat to society._

She finishes her journal entry and turns off the light in the room she's staying in. She lays down in bed, staring at the ceiling, and tries to shut off the gears constantly turning in her mind.

She never sleeps well. Her theory is that because her mind is so much more advanced than the average Scientists', she has trouble relaxing enough to even enter into the first sleep stage. She never told her parents or saw a doctor about her sleep troubles; Medical Specialists probably wouldn't be able to help her. She doesn't mind dealing with this one struggle, though, because she knows how incredibly intelligent she is, and that's more important than anything else.

* * *

 **listen i know this chapter was pretty boring BUTTTTTTTT it was necessary i promise! and i also promise next chapter is when things start to get interesting ;))) anyway thanks so much for reading and i love youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu**


	4. Chapter 4

After about a week and a half of living with the Magicians, Austin finally seems to trust her enough to be alone. Either that, or he trusts his animal friends enough to stop her from escaping.

But no matter what the reason, she likes the alone time and freedom.

Austin is away visiting the city and Dez, and his parents are working, so Ally wanders around the Magicians' little town. She hasn't gotten to look around much; the only real tour she got was when she was first brought here, and she wasn't able to take in the details because she was focused on the fact that she had just been kidnapped by a deadly Magician.

Now, however, she is free to get a closer look at their interesting town and their way of life. It doesn't seem to different from that of the Scientists', from what she's seen so far.

The other Magicians are beginning to recognize her. Many of them give her a polite smile and a wave when she passes them on the road, but she can tell that they're afraid of what could happen if she got back home and turned them in. Others are open with their wariness around her; they avoid her gaze, and parents tighten their grips on their children's hands. Still others glare at her with anger and disgust.

She doesn't let it bother her, though. She can see things from their point of view, one of the advantages of being so superior in intelligence. She doesn't blame them for not understanding her perspective.

She finds herself in front of the playground, and she sits on an empty bench. For a few minutes, she simply leans back and closes her eyes, enjoying the warm sun on her skin. She doesn't get to go outside much at home; she's always either in school or studying, with only about half an hour of outdoor exercise for her health. She makes a promise to herself to go outside more when she gets back. She likes it.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a child calling for his mother. She opens her eyes in curiosity and sees a boy around seven holding onto the wrist of a little girl that looks to be the same age. The woman who must be his mother walks over to him.

"Mommy, tell Amber there's no going invisible during hide-and-seek!" he whines.

The little girl, Amber, giggles beside him. "It's not _my_ fault I'm really good at hide-and-seek!"

The boy's mother sighs and looks at the girl. "Amber, sweetie, using your powers to win is cheating. That doesn't make the game as fun, does it?"

Amber stops giggling and frowns. "Cameron flies when we play tag so I can't catch him!" she argues. "If he can use his powers, why can't I?!"

"It's not _fair_!" Cameron whines.

Amber sticks her tongue out at Cameron, and he does the same to her.

The poor mother sighs defeatedly. "I think it's time to go home. Amber, do you know if your mom is home?"

"She is," Amber says.

Cameron's mother nods, and the three of them walk away from the playground. Ally takes out her journal to write about what she just witnessed.

 _Magicians' powers are not just used in their professions. Their powers are intertwined with their culture. Saw two children talking about using their powers while playing games. It is considered cheating, but these two children had separate powers. Would it still be cheating if they had the same powers?_

She closes her journal and puts it away. She's about to get up, but something grabs her left leg. She shrieks in surprise and kicks the air to force whatever is on her leg to get off.

She sees a massive snake writhing on the ground, trying to regain its bearings. She exhales, trying to calm her pounding heart.

Deciding that it's best to leave before the snake realizes she was the one who provoked it and attacks her, Ally stands up and continues walking throughout the town.

The snake slithers at her side, brushing up against her ankle every so often.

"You must be one of Austin's friends," she mutters defeatedly.

After receiving one too many sideways glances from the Magicians she passes on her walk, she decides to just go back to the Moons'. Besides, since the house is empty, she'd like to look around more thoroughly and see if there's anything out of the ordinary.

Austin's scaly friend doesn't enter the house with her. It stays on the ground outside, coiling and uncoiling its body restlessly.

She first goes up to Austin's room.

It isn't that exciting. His bed is against one wall with a small nightstand next to it. There's a desk against another wall and a small bookshelf next to it. If she didn't know any better, she'd think it was just an average person's room.

She walks over to the bookshelf, being careful not to trip over the dirty clothes littering the ground. Most of the books are mystery novels, which she finds interesting. However, some of them are ones she doesn't recognize. Upon further examination, she realizes that they're like Magician self-help books, all advertising varying advice on how to control, embrace, or advance one's powers. He has about seven of these books, and it makes her wonder if maybe he feels insecure in his powers. For starters, no one else he knows is a Nature Magician, and that fact along with his inability to attend school seems to have made him a bit of an outcast in their Magician society. He also can't control his powers, which must hurt his confidence as well.

She makes a mental note to try to gain more insight about his insecurity when he gets back.

She looks at his desk next, and it's mostly just a mess of slightly wrinkled papers with various notes, doodles, and lists written on them in red pen. She wonders if he knows that red is one of the hardest colors to read.

Along the back of the desk against the wall, she finds a long rectangular planter. There's nothing growing in it, but the soil inside it seems fertile and sunlight streaming in from one of Austin's windows hits it perfectly. She wonders if the Nature Magician actually struggles to grow anything from a seed without using magic.

She's about to walk out of the room, when she sees something on the wall by the door that she didn't see when she walked in.

It looks like a calendar, but not really. Thirty-one clear boxes line the wall in rows of seven, like a calendar of a month with thirty-one days would look if it started on a Sunday. The boxes have no lids, and inside each box is a small terracotta flower pot filled with soil. Most of the pots are empty, but the first row and a half of pots have a single flower growing out of them. Most of the flowers are white, but a few of them are bright shades of red, yellow, blue, or purple. Next to the flower calendar is a single clear box attached to the wall, except this one has a small notebook and a pen sitting inside it. She's about to reach for the notebook, but a loud _BOOM!_ stops her.

She frowns and walks over to Austin's window, where she sees dark clouds rapidly covering the town. A flash of light and another _BOOM!_ confirm that the sound is a clap of thunder. Rain starts pouring down from the sky, and she rushes downstairs, journal and pen in hand.

She quickly scribbles down an entry about the rapid onset of such a huge storm with no warning before setting the journal on the coffee table in the living room and venturing outside.

She stays on the porch as an attempt to stay dry, but the wind whips at her clothes and hair and causes the rain to spray on her anyway. Austin's snake friend is still curled up by the door, but she sees it watching her warily.

Lightning strikes a tree a few yards away from the house, but Ally frowns in surprise when the tree doesn't appear to be damaged.

Before she can worry about it too much, she sees someone walking down the path. When they get closer, she realizes it's a very angry, very _dry_ Austin.

He walks up the porch steps and grabs her arm, dragging her inside wordlessly and slamming the door. She knows better than to fight it.

"You caused all this?" she asks as he starts pacing in the living room.

"I'm angry."

"Clearly."

She winces as another loud clap of thunder startles her.

"What's wrong? I thought seeing Dez made you happier," she says.

"That's the thing," he snaps, stopping to look at her. She could swear the rain outside starts falling even harder, hitting the roof like tiny hammers. "I didn't _see_ Dez."

"Why not?"

He glares at her for a second, his jaw clenched and his hair smoking. "Because Dez is gone."

* * *

 **hahahaha hey guys...long time no see...? i am truly sorry that i took so long to update, but with ap testing and all my homework and some other things i've been dealing with, i really haven't had any time to write. BUT school ends next week, which means i should have a lot more time! hopefully you still want to read this story because i want to keep writing it, and i promise it'll be worth it! i'm also sorry for this short chapter but i promise the next one should be longer and much more exciting :) thanks for reading!**


	5. Chapter 5

Ally watches Austin pace the length of the living room angrily. The rain continues to beat against the house in sheets while the wind howls loud enough to hear from inside.

"What do you mean Dez is _gone_?" Ally asks him. "You need to learn to be less vague with your words."

The loudest clap of thunder yet sounds outside as Austin turns sharply to face her. "I _mean_ ," he hisses, smoke rolling off his hair, "he's no longer at home. He's not there. And do you know _why_ he's gone?"

"If I did, I wouldn't be asking you questions," she points out.

Austin sets his jaw. More thunder outside, more smoke on his hair, and now sparks start crackling on the top of his head. Ally stands on her tiptoes and blows out the small flame so he doesn't burn down the house.

That gesture must be the breaking point, because immediately after she blows out the flame, the wind comes to a halt, the rain stops falling, and the dark clouds dissipate. He sits down on the couch and puts his face in his hands, the smoke in his hair gone as well.

"The police took him," he says, his voice muffled by his hands. "His parents said it was because of your disappearance. Your other friend told the police that he was the last person with you before you disappeared, so they took him for questioning."

"I see," Ally says. Suddenly, she feels a pit in her stomach. She tries to ignore it, as she always does with emotions, but this is too much. "They have a truth serum they use in interrogations. They're going to find out that Dez and his family have been in contact with you and didn't turn you in."

"And it's all my fault." His voice is so quiet she barely hears it.

"Probably," Ally agrees. Then she takes a deep breath. "I'm going to rescue him."

Austin looks up at her. "You – what?"

"Once they find out about you, they'll probably take him to the Capitol and keep him there for a while until they decide what to do with him. But it's inevitable that they're going to kill him, and while I don't condone being in contact with and protecting Magicians and I firmly believe in the law, the reason Dez was arrested isn't his fault, and he hasn't done any harm."

Austin presses his lips together and stands up. "If you think I'm just gonna let you go – "

"You can come with me," she says.

He crosses his arms. "And how do I know you aren't gonna just turn me in?"

"I want to help my friend. Your powers would be a helpful asset, because it won't be easy."

"You expect me to just take your word for it?"

"Scientists tell the truth, but if you still don't believe me you could just have your father read my mind."

Austin drums his fingers against his arm. She can see the gears turning in his head. "Fine," he says. "I will. We _have_ to save Dez."

"Technically we don't _have_ to – "

"Yes. We do."

* * *

"No." Austin's father's voice is short and gruff, more than usual. "It's stupid and way too dangerous."

"I didn't ask for permission," Austin says. "All I asked was whether or not Ally is planning on turning me in."

Austin's father looks at her for a split second before focusing his attention on his son again. "No. But you still aren't going."

"Dad, _you_ raised me to always do the right thing. And this is the right thing!" Austin exclaims.

"Do what's right when it isn't going to get you _killed_!" his father shoots back.

"Mike," Austin's mother cuts in, "Austin's doing something noble with or without our support. We may as well help him."

Austin's father takes a deep breath and turns to Ally again. "Contrary to what you may believe, I'm not an idiot. I know you're smart, and I know you could've found a way to override my abilities. But if anything happens to my son – "

"I won't let anything bad happen to him," Ally says. "I want to help Dez."

"We're leaving tomorrow," Austin says. "So if you'll excuse us, we need to pack."

With that, Austin grabs Ally's arm and drags her upstairs to his room.

"So, I have a question," Ally says as she watches Austin start packing extra clothes into a backpack.

"Of course you do," he mutters.

"Why is your dad okay with you visiting Dez in the city, but he isn't okay with us going to save him?"

"Well, Dez is my friend and you threatened to turn us all in and let us die, for one thing," Austin points out.

"Sure."

"And going to your city's police station or whereverthey're keeping him is a lot more dangerous than hanging out in Dez's backyard on the edge of the city."

"Fair point."

"And nobody in this town trusts me to be alone."

"Because of your powers?"

"Smart one, you are."

"I detect a hint of sarcasm."

"Observant, too."

"I have another question," she tells him when he stands up.

"Naturally," he responds.

"What's that?" She points to the calendar of flower pots on his wall that she saw earlier.

He looks over at it. "It's my mood tracker. Every day I'm supposed to grow a flower with a color that corresponds to my mood that day. It's supposed to help me be more aware of how my emotions affect my powers or something."

"Oh. That's really smart," she says.

"Anything else?"

"Yes, actually – "

"Shouldn't have asked," he mutters.

"What's that for?" She points to the elongated flower pot on his desk.

He shrugs. "I get bored." He makes a lazy motion with his hand and suddenly green vines start sprouting out of the pot rapidly. Those vines sprout their own smaller vines, where vibrant flowers blossom on the ends.

"Wow," she says lamely, looking at the greenery in awe.

He looks over at her, one eyebrow raised incredulously. "You're finally speechless, aren't you?"

"It's beautiful."

"Huh. Glad I know how to make you shut up."

And suddenly, all of the flowers close up into buds and the vines retreat back into the pot, as if someone hit the rewind button. She frowns and looks over at Austin, who's holding his hand in a fist.

"Go pack some clothes and whatever else you need," he tells her, reaching into his closet and tossing her a backpack. "We leave tomorrow morning."

* * *

"So, do you know where they took him?" Austin asks her as they walk away from the Magicians' town and into the woods.

"They probably took him to the police station, but when they find out about you guys, they'll probably take him to City Hall to figure out what to do with him."

"Okay. And where's that?"

"On the other side of the city," she tells him.

"How far is that?"

"We have to travel outside the city limits, so it's a little over a hundred and fifty miles."

"Great. I can just fly us there and – "

"No!" she interrupts. "You can't do that. We'd be flying parallel to the city, which means your altering of the wind patterns would be a lot more noticeable to the Meteorology Specialists and we'd be more likely to get caught."

"I fly home from Dez's all the time and I'm fine," Austin says, raising an eyebrow.

"Because that's _perpendicular_ to the city, so there isn't enough alteration near the city for them to notice."

"So we have to go on foot," Austin says.

Ally nods, tightening the straps of her backpack. "It's the smartest and safest way."

The Magician takes a deep breath. "Okay."

The pair continues walking, silence falling over them. Ally considers asking her companion more questions about Magicians and his own powers, but she ultimately decides against it. He seems too frustrated to give her any real answers right now, anyway.

After a while, a loud rumbling noise echoes through the forest. The pair freezes in surprise, Austin's hair turning to flames for a split second before going back to normal.

"What was that?" Ally asks him.

"My guess is as good as yours, Einstein," he replies.

"It sounded pretty far away," Ally notes. "But we should check out what it was."

"If it's far away, that means it isn't our problem. We are going straight to Dez. No detours for your research or whatever."

Ally stops walking, grabbing Austin's arm to stop him too. "Listen, I'm the one who came up with the plan to save Dez. I want to help him just as much as you do. But whatever that was sounds dangerous, and the last thing we need is to ignore it, only for it to come back and bite us later when we could've prevented it by checking it out beforehand."

Austin rolls his eyes. "Fine. Whatever. What's your big plan to figure it out?"

"Fly me up so I can see over the trees."

"You said no flying."

"I said no flying _parallel_ to the city."

Austin exhales and moves his arms in a lifting motion, and Ally yelps as she shoots up through the trees.

"A little warning would've been nice!" she calls down to him.

"Beggars can't be choosers, Ally!" he calls back up.

She sighs and scans the ground between the cracks in the trees, searching for something that could've made such a loud, ominous noise. But she sees nothing.

"Nothing," she calls down to Austin in defeat.

He brings her back to the ground and she meets his annoyed glare. "Happy now?"

"No. We still don't know what it was."

He throws his hands up and groans in frustration. Gray clouds start collecting right over his head.

"Let's just keep going," he mutters, batting the clouds away.

"But – "

"Can't you shut up for, like, five _seconds_?" Austin asks her.

She stares at him for a few seconds. "There. That's five."

"I thought Scientists couldn't be cheeky."

"And I thought Magicians didn't throw temper tantrums."

Austin sets his jaw and keeps walking. Ally follows him.

"I'm not throwing a temper tantrum. You're just really pissing me off."

"And you're throwing a tantrum about it. But it's fine, I suppose you Magicians can't help but let your emotions get the best of you."

Austin opens his mouth, but then he closes it, remaining silent instead. Ally watches him for a few seconds while he stares straight ahead, his face never relaxing from its annoyed, tense state.

She glances up and sees more gray clouds slowly forming over his head. She reaches up and dissipates them. He shifts his gaze to her for a second before looking ahead again, but she notices his face begin to relax.

* * *

 **lol remember when i said i was gonna update more often...? sorry for lying again BUT it's summer now and i'm getting back in the groove of writing so maybe it'll be sooner next time? thank you for reading and sticking with me i promise this story will be worth the wait and i love you guys**


	6. Chapter 6

If Ally has learned anything from her limited experience with Austin, it's that he does _not_ like when she makes scientific observations. She's tried a few times to record notes about Austin's behavior as well as her own since they set out to rescue Dez, but Austin gets angry at her every time. She understands that this is how his stress and worry for Dez is manifesting itself, but she doesn't appreciate that it's getting in the way of her being a good Scientist.

Before he can snap at her yet again about writing something in her journal, the rumbling sound echoes throughout the forest.

She exhales and shuts her journal, looking at the angry blond next to her. "Austin, that's the fifth time we've heard it in the past two hours, and it sounds like it's getting closer."

"We tried to check it out and failed. Can't you stop being so nosy for once?"

"I'm not _nosy_ , I'm just curious. And I don't want whatever is making that noise to hurt us. Can't _you_ stop complaining about everything I do? You don't see me getting mad at you for that cloud following us around." She points to the gray cloud still looming over Austin's head (due to his annoyance with her, she presumes).

Austin exhales. "I can't help that and you know it," he tells her.

"Yeah? Well, I can't help wanting to figure out things I don't know. It's in my nature to be curious and to gain as much knowledge about every situation as I can, just as much as it's in your nature to create centralized natural disasters against your own will," she says.

"You can control your Scientist urges. I can't control my magic."

"Intelligence is my superpower, like Nature magic is yours."

"That's different."

"You don't know that. All you know is being a Magician. But I trust that you can't control it, just like _you_ should trust that being a Scientist means I can't help but record my observations and be curious about the unknown."

Austin presses his lips together in a tight line for a moment, looking ahead. Finally, he asks, "Well, what do you wanna do about it?"

"Since you can speak with animals, you could ask one to go ahead of us and see what it is."

"That…isn't a stupid idea," Austin says reluctantly.

"I don't have stupid ideas," Ally tells him.

"Right. For a second I forgot you were a self-absorbed know-it-all."

"You're being quite rude."

He ignores her, walking over to a tree and looking at a bird sitting on a branch. He speaks to it quietly, so instead of straining her ears to listen, Ally sits on a rock and takes a drink of water from a bottle in her backpack.

When the bird flies off, Austin watches it for a few seconds and then walks over to Ally. She expects him to snap at her or criticize her for something, so she begins formulating responses to every possible accusation she can think of. But the blond simply plops himself down on a rock next to her and takes out his own water bottle.

"Are you worried about him?" she asks. She already knows his answer, but she also knows that talking through emotions makes them a little easier to deal with. And Austin needs to be able to deal with these emotions before his magic gets out of hand and he hurts her or himself.

Austin takes one more sip of water and swallows it. "Yeah," he says quietly, setting the water bottle on the ground before resting his hands on his knees and looking down for a few moments. Just when she thinks that's all he's going to say, he looks over at her. "Aren't you?"

"Of course I am," she replies. "But Dez is smart. If anything, he'll be able to stall long enough for us to save him."

"You think?" Austin asks her. She detects a hint of genuine hope in his voice.

"Yeah, I do."

Austin takes a deep breath and nods, looking ahead of him at the dense, seemingly never-ending sea of trees. "I feel like it's my fault."

 _It is_. But Ally knows better now than to say that. It would make him angry and guiltier. She needs him to be calmer, not become even more emotionally unstable.

"It's not your fault," she tells him, trying to make her voice sound genuine and soothing instead of its usual monotonous sharpness.

"Thanks," he says, but his voice is flat, which she has come to know indicates that he doesn't believe what she's saying. At least he _knows_ it's his fault.

"So…do you have any idea when that bird is going to come back?" she asks, trying to change the subject.

"She's going as fast as she can. I don't know," he replies.

The rumbling noise sounds again, causing both of them to jump in surprise. Ally turns to face the trees behind Austin, where the sound seems to be coming from. Austin looks at her, catching her gaze.

"You aren't expecting to see something, are you?" he asks.

"It's instinctual," she says. "Of course I don't expect to see anything."

"I think you're afraid there's some giant tree monster out to get us," he says.

She raises an eyebrow. "That's not only incorrect, it's also completely illogical."

"Is it? Enlighten me." There's something in his voice she can't quite place, so she narrows her eyes at him.

"First of all, tree monsters don't exist."

"So you think."

"I know they aren't real."

"So, since you say they don't exist, they don't exist."

"My saying they aren't real isn't the _cause_ of them not being real," she tells him.

"So by that logic," he continues, completely ignoring her, "Magicians don't exist either, since you said they weren't real. And that means you're alone in the forest talking to a figment of your imagination, which makes you crazy."

"That's just not true," she says, tilting her head.

All he does is raise his eyebrows at her. "Well, go on with your explanation," he says.

"Fine. Even if there _was_ a tree monster coming for us, you could just use your magic to defeat it."

"Ah, but what if I couldn't control it since it has a mind of its own?"

"You could set it on fire, hit it with lightning, trap it in a cave or something – "

"Fair enough."

She finally connects the look on his face to the tone of his voice. "You're entertaining yourself with this," she says.

"You're really working that genius brain of yours today, aren't you?"

"And that was sarcasm."

"Can't get anything past you, Princess."

She frowns at him. "I am not a princess. I'm simply a prodigy. Besides, we are a democracy. If anything, I'd be the president."

He opens his mouth, then closes it again. "My mistake," he finally says.

The pair is silent for a while, sitting on their respective rocks and staring at the trees, awaiting a small bird that will tell them if they could possibly die today.

Just as the silence is about to turn from tolerable to slightly awkward, Austin speaks up again. "So, you know, like, everything about me. Tell me about you."

She glances at him warily. "Really?"

"You're not the only one who can be curious," he says with a shrug. "If we're going on this possibly dangerous adventure together to save our mutual friend, I may as well know more about you than your name and the fact that you're a Scientist with no filter."

She decides to ignore that last part. "Well…I'm studying to be a Psychology Specialist."

"Psychology? Huh. That's the _last_ thing I'd expect you to study."

"You said so yourself, you don't really know me."

"Fair point. So, why psychology?" he asks.

"I find the human mind fascinating," she says. "There's still so much about it we don't know, and since I'm even more intelligent than most other Scientists, I know I could contribute greatly to our understanding of the mind and how it works."

"Sure," he says with a nod.

"And I want to help people. Scientists are intelligent, but we aren't without our setbacks. I want to make sure everyone is able to reach their full potential and contribute all that they can to our search for knowledge. They can't do that if their mind is sick."

"That's…actually pretty cool," he says, looking over at her. "And now I understand why you've been such a pretentious know-it-all whenever my emotions come into question."

"I'll ignore that insult because I appreciate the compliment," she replies. She's about to offer to work with him to try to control his powers, but the bird flutters over before she can.

Austin holds out his hand, and the bird lands in his palm. He looks at it intently, nodding. Then, just as quickly as it came, the bird flies away.

Ally looks at the blond expectantly. "Well?"

"She saw two people, and the sound was coming from one of them hitting big rocks."

"That's what she said?"

Austin nods. "Don't really know what to do with that."

"Well, if that's really what she saw, then we should be fine. It's probably two Scientists experimenting or something. We'll just be careful so they don't see us."

"Sounds good. Let's go."

Together, they stand up and continue walking through the woods.

It doesn't take long for the sound to become so loud it rattles in her chest. Austin's face is void of emotion, but the tiny flowers popping up behind him are a dead giveaway that he's nervous.

Ally begins to pick up two voices in between each rumble, both laughing and full of amusement. She slows down her pace to make sure she isn't seen, and Austin follows suit.

They come to a break in the trees that reveals a small clearing ahead of them. Austin grabs Ally's arm and pulls her down to a crouch behind some bushes.

"We need to see what they're doing," she whispers.

Austin holds a finger over his mouth to tell her to be quiet, and then he faces the bushes. He moves his hands away from each other in a spreading motion and the leaves part slightly so the pair has a view of the clearing. Ally nods in approval.

She immediately knows that at least one of the men is a Magician. One of them, a short, scrawny young man with a patch of wild red hair on his head and a splash of freckles across his nose, has his arms raised in the air in what Ally knows is some sort of spell. He moves them slowly, occasionally making a strained face.

The other man, a large blond with biceps as big as Ally's head, seems to be waiting impatiently for something. His arms are crossed, and he's watching the redhead's arms.

"Can't you go any faster?" the muscle-man says, his voice almost comically deep for the immature complaint.

"I'm tryin', moron," the redhead replies. His voice is so nasally it sounds like he's talking more out of his nose than his mouth.

Suddenly, a massive boulder breaks through the trees on the other side of the clearing, slowly rolling across the ground with no outside force acting to make it do so. Ally frowns.

"Telekinetic," Austin whispers before she can say anything about the laws of physics.

"You know I like smashing stuff," the blond man says, watching the boulder inch across the clearing.

"Yeah," says the Telekinetic, clearly concentrating more on moving the boulder with his mind. "I'm only doin' this so you'll shut up for once."

"The other one is probably a Brawn. Super strength," Austin whispers.

The Brawn gets tired of waiting and runs over to the boulder. Sure enough, he turns it to rubble with a single punch, effectively creating the now-deafening rumbling sound.

"If they're both Magicians, why don't they live with you?" Ally whispers while the Brawn laughs at the destruction he's caused.

"Not every Magician lives in town with us," Austin replies. "There are probably lots more just like ours. And some Magicians just live in hiding on their own."

Ally nods in understanding.

"We should probably feed the girl," the Brawn notes, looking at the redhead. "It's been a couple days."

The Telekinetic groans in annoyance, but he nods. "You're right. I'll just go give her a slice of that stale bread or something." Then he walks across the clearing to a pile of rocks tucked against a hill. He makes a swiping motion with his hand and one of the bigger rocks moves to reveal a cave and walks inside.

Ally looks at Austin. "They have a girl locked in there," she whispers. "We have to save her."

"So the Ice Queen _does_ have a heart," he mutters, squinting as he tries to see inside the cave. "I'll distract the Brawn, you go save the girl."

"What about the Telekinetic?"

"You'll figure something out."

Ally nods and Austin sits up on his knees to see over the bush. He points his index finger ahead of him and drags it upwards. A tree begins growing behind the Brawn as if Austin's finger-painting it. Once it seems fully grown, a single branch emerges from its side, and it reaches down and taps the Brawn on the shoulder. As soon as he turns around, Ally runs for the cave.

"Hey!" Ally hears the Brawn exclaim from behind her. "You, kid! What're you doing?!"

She doesn't stop running, but she doesn't hear any footsteps behind her. She enters the cave, breathing heavily.

"Who's there?!" the Telekinetic exclaims from a dark area near the back. He walks towards her.

"I am a Scientist working for the government to track down Magicians and turn them in. I'm going to need you to come with me," she says.

The Telekinetic smirks at her. "That ain't happenin' darlin'," he says.

"My associate has already bound your partner and loaded him into the truck. He should be here any second for you, and trust me, coming with me will be a lot easier than dealing with him," she tells him.

"I think I can take care of your _associate_ ," he sneers, strolling out of the cave ahead of her.

She's about to go find the girl they're holding captive, but she hears a loud _SWOOSH_ outside and a strangled yell. She runs out to see what's going on.

The Brawn is encircled in a ring of fire, the flames stretching well over his head. Austin is fighting with the Telekinetic, but it seems to be going nowhere. Every time Austin tries to capture him in some sort of enclosure like the Brawn's fire ring, the Telekinetic simply breaks it or disassembles it with his mind.

While this is going on, Ally sees another boulder rolling out of the woods behind Austin in the direction of the fire. She sprints over to it and stands in front of it, pushing back and to the side as hard as she can to make it stop or at least change directions. The Telekinetic must see her, because the boulder begins rising into the air.

She's about to call to Austin to tell him to stop it, but suddenly the boulder falls to the ground with a thud, still a few yards away from the fire.

She turns around and sees Austin standing with his arms outstretched in front of a pile of rocks that wasn't there before.

"How is he not breaking that?" she asks, walking over to the panting blond.

"I…hit him on the back of the head…on accident," he says in between breaths, "but it made him go blind…at least temporarily. He can't control anything he can't see."

"Then we need to save the girl and get out of here," Ally says. "You go in and rescue her, and I'll go ahead a little. Then the both of you can just catch up with me."

"What – why?"

"In case either of the Magicians get out. Then you can send her ahead to me while you fight them again. Besides, the cave is too dark for me to see in anyway, but you can just use your fire as light."

Austin presses his lips together. "Fine. But we're in this together. Don't ditch me."

Ally exhales impatiently. "Wouldn't dream of it." She pushes him gently towards the cave and then walks to the woods on the other side of the clearing.

She walks for a few yards until she knows she's safely hidden in the relative darkness of the tree cover, but she can still see the clearing. She sits down on a rock and takes a long swig of water. Then, she takes out her journal and writes about the events of the past twenty minutes.

 _There seem to be both "good" Magicians and "bad" Magicians. Those living in the town all seem to be good, in that they would be good, average citizens if they lived in the city. However, the ones we just encountered were the opposite. They held a girl prisoner and tried to kill Austin and me._

 _I found myself genuinely worried about Austin's safety when I thought I heard him yelling from inside the cave, and then I felt quite relieved when I discovered that he was okay. Because I seem to care about his safety, I suppose he could technically be considered a friend. I'm finding that I have far less desire to turn him and the other Magicians in to the police than I did when I first met them. I'm almost glad I promised Austin I wouldn't._

She closes her journal and puts it back in her bag just as Austin walks into the forest and over to her. He's alone, except for a bird sitting on his shoulder.

"Where's the girl?" Ally asks him, standing up. "Is your friend here going to find her?"

"This is her," Austin says, holding his hand up to his shoulder. The bird hops into his hand, and he sets it gently on the ground. "She's a Shapeshifter. I don't know much else than that, other than that she's scared. She's gonna get cleaned up and eat something, and then hopefully we can figure out how to get her home."

Ally nods. "Good plan. I believe you're learning from me."

"Since we almost just died, I'm not gonna say anything about that one," he says decidedly. Then, he walks farther into the woods, the bird – er, _girl_ – fluttering behind him. Ally follows a few steps behind.

Austin stops at the edge of a small grassy area free of any rocks or trees, but still covered by the canopy of the trees surrounding it. Ally stops behind him while the bird-girl perches on his shoulder. He holds out his hand with his palm facing upward and slowly raises it. The ground in front of him seems to collapse in on itself like a sinkhole, only to fill with clear blue water. Then he holds his hand upwards with his palm facing in front of him and snaps his wrist around towards himself. A round wall of rocks forms around the pool of water, with a small opening in front of them.

"Go clean up in there, and when you're done we'll have some food for you. Okay?" he says to the bird.

She chirps and flies inside the opening to the pool, and Austin and Ally walk around to the opposite side. Ally sits down on the grass, leaning her back against the stone wall, while Austin goes to work growing plants for food.

"Do you want anything while I'm at it?" he asks her after a minute or two. "I can grow anything."

Ally thinks about it for a second. "I like grapes," she says.

Austin nods and points to the wall next to her with his index finger and then flicks it upwards, still using his other arm to grow things for the girl. Ally looks at the spot where he pointed to see a vine rapidly climbing up the wall, already sprouting smaller vines with purple grapes ripening at super speed.

Ally stands up, plucking off all the grapes she can find and popping them into her mouth. "Thank you," she says to Austin, looking for more grapes.

"No problem," the blond replies. "I like my powers being useful for once."

"Do you like your powers?" she asks casually, most of her attention focused on picking the grapes.

"What do you mean?"

"Well…you're pretty insecure about not being able to control them. And you seem to think there's no real use for Nature magic," she notes.

"I mean, I don't _dislike_ being a Nature Magician," he says. "I dunno. I guess I just wish my hair didn't catch on fire every time something surprised me."

"You were saying that you're more powerful than the others. Would you give that up to be able to control your magic?" She looks at him.

"In a heartbeat," he says immediately. "Being more powerful is useless when you can't control it."

"I suppose that makes sense."

Austin finishes the little fruit orchard and returns to his spot sitting against the rock wall. He leans his head against it to look up at her. "How do you push back all your emotions?"

"What do you mean?" she asks, sitting back down next to him.

"Well, you say that emotions get in the way of your search for knowledge or whatever so Scientists don't really pay attention to emotions. But you're all still human, so you have to feel them. How do you not let them affect you?"

His light brown eyes are curious and questioning, almost like a Scientist's. Ally can't help but feel a bit proud that her intelligence and enthusiasm for learning seems to be rubbing off on him.

"I focus on whatever I'm trying to study or figure out," she tells him.

"What if you aren't studying or trying to figure anything out?"

"That would never happen."

"So…what're you focusing on now?"

"Trying to figure out what we're going to do with this girl, and thinking about how to save Dez in the background."

"Doesn't it get tiring?" he asks her. "Thinking so concretely all the time?"

"Well, what else would I do?"

"Clear your mind. Daydream."

"That sounds like a waste of brainpower," she says.

The blond shrugs, pulling his knees up to his chest and resting his elbows on top of them. "A little daydreaming is relaxing. Healthy, even."

"I doubt you know anything about keeping your mind healthy. At least, not nearly as much as a Psychology Specialist such as myself."

Austin opens his mouth to say something, but he stops, looking at something behind her. She turns and sees a little girl – about seven or eight, much younger than Ally thought she'd be – peeking around the corner of the rock wall.

"Hey," Austin says gently, standing up and dusting off his pants. "You don't have to be afraid. We're not gonna hurt you. There's some fruit in all these trees, if you're hungry. I'm Austin, and this is my…friend, Ally," he says, hesitating for just a moment. "I'm a Nature Magician, and she's a _really_ smart Scientist. But she's on our side."

The little girl bites her lower lip and walks over to them. The sun makes her brown skin glow as if she's been dusted with tiny specks of copper, a stark contrast from the dull and dusty brown of the dirt on her clothes. Her eyes are such a deep, rich brown they're almost black, like her hair. But they're sweet and innocent, nervous but trusting. She pulls a strand of frizzy hair between her fingers and stands on her tiptoes, pulling an apple off one of the trees.

Ally stands up and looks at Austin next to her. His eyes are trained on the little girl, who takes a bite of her apple and walks back over to them, still twirling that strand of hair.

"What's your name?" Austin asks her, kneeling down to be at eye-level with the girl.

"Daisy," she pipes up quietly from behind her apple.

"Daisy," Austin echoes. "That's pretty."

Daisy's lips curve upwards a bit, her tiny smile just barely visible peeking out from the sides of the apple. Then her smile fades as she shifts her eyes to Ally.

Ally realizes that her resting face is emotionless, cold, calculating, like she is when she's studying something, which is probably making the little girl uneasy. Ally softens her face and gives Daisy a gentle smile, kneeling down next to Austin.

"Do you know where your family is, Daisy?" she asks, mimicking Austin's comforting and encouraging tone.

The girl shakes her head, looking away from Ally. "I don't have one," she whispers. "They said _they_ were my family." Her tiny figure seems to collapse in on itself, a manifestation of shame, Ally notes, and evidence of her experience in isolation trapped in that cave.

"Hey, we both know that's not true," Austin says, tilting his head to the side and leaning down more to try to catch her gaze. "Whatever those bad guys told you, they're liars. Me and Ally are gonna help you find your _real_ family, okay?"

Daisy looks up at him through her eyelashes, still holding the apple in front of her mouth but not eating it, twirling that strand of hair in her other hand. "Okay…" she says hesitantly.

"Daisy, why were those bad guys keeping you trapped like that?" Ally asks her.

"I had to use my powers to sneak around and get stuff for them," she says, a little louder, with a twinge of bitterness in her voice. Ally can see a certain defiance in her dark eyes, a knowledge that she is better than those men, that she is above taking orders from them.

"But you know that you can do better things than sneak around and get stuff for some bad guys, don't you?"

Daisy nods, taking a bite of her apple and letting go of the hair she was twirling.

"Daisy, I'm gonna talk to Ally for a second. Eat as much as you like. We'll just be right over there," Austin steps in, pointing a few yards away.

Daisy nods and Ally follows Austin to the spot he pointed at.

"What are we gonna do with her?" Austin asks, keeping his eye on the girl over Ally's shoulder. "It's not like we can take her with us."

"We could take her back to your parents. They could take care of her and work on finding her family while we save Dez," Ally suggests.

Austin nods. "We can't waste time walking all the way back, though. I'll have some birds guide her or something."

"We can't send her all that way _alone_!" Ally whisper-yells. "She's a kid!"

Austin raises his eyebrows, a small, amused smirk forming on his face. "Well, looks like Miss Emotionless Scientist _does_ have a heart after all."

Ally rolls her eyes. "Now is not the time for this. She isn't going all the way back there alone. No way."

"She isn't going to be alone. There'll be a few birds to guide her – she can turn into one of them – and I'll send along a snake or something for protection just in case. We can even give her a note asking my parents to send one back to us when she arrives so we know she's okay. It's the only way."

Ally presses her lips together and takes a deep breath. "The odds of something going wrong are too high – "

"Ally, you can't go through life with that mindset."

"I'm not going through life with this mindset. I just don't want this little girl to get hurt or worse because we sent her alone miles through the forest," Ally snaps, glaring up at the blond.

Austin looks behind Ally – presumably at Daisy – and then meets her glare with, surprisingly, a calm stare. "Look," Austin says, "we don't have any other options. You know we've lost too much time already and we can't risk any more going all the way back. I wouldn't be suggesting this if I wasn't confident she'd be safe. I really need you to act confident about it too so she doesn't get scared."

"No. I'm not confident. I'll take her back on my own."

"No," Austin says immediately, shaking his head and crossing his arms. "No. You and me, we're in this together. No splitting up, or ditching each other, or dying on each other."

"Since when do you _want_ to be around me?" Ally asks.

"Since _you're_ the one who knows where we're going," he replies. "Get over yourself. And I know you need me, because I have the magic."

Ally sighs, looking away from him. "You send her with as much protection and as many guides as you can get. This girl doesn't get a _scratch_ , understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," Austin replies, his voice dripping with annoyance and sarcasm. "I'm gonna go tell her what's happening. You…I don't know, go study a tree or something."

He walks off toward Daisy. Ally rolls her eyes and walks around the other side of the cave Austin created, staring at the endless sea of trees in front of her, losing herself in her thoughts.

She mostly thinks about how many things could go wrong on Daisy's trip to Austin's parents' house, but she really makes an effort to think about something more positive, like the fact that Austin has been more talkative since they began their journey. He seems to be seeking out her wisdom more often.

She crosses her arms and goes up on her tiptoes for a few moments, stretching out her ankles. She wonders about daydreaming. At first it sounded like a waste, yes, but the more she thinks about it, the nicer it sounds. A break from the concrete, an escape from the suffocating mundaneness of reality. As much as Scientists are supposed to thrive in concrete mundaneness, Ally can't help but wonder if maybe a little daydreaming would be healthy for her after all.

She remembers the way Austin made that plant grow in his room, the way the swirling, stretching vines mesmerized her, leaving her awestruck and speechless. That was the moment she realized that magic can be beautiful, a realization that scared her at first, because everything she's learned paints magic as dangerous and primitive and _evil_ , but then sent an electric thrill through her veins. She pushed that thrill away, of course, as Scientists are meant to do with all emotions, but since then, she's had a hunger to see more magic, to feel that sense of wonder and to allow the thrill of _not knowing_ to consume her. That's her favorite part, the not knowing. She doesn't know how magic works, and she probably never will, but for once she's okay with that, and that's where the thrill comes in, because she's taking everything she knows she's supposed to be and throwing it to the wind. She's letting something out there be _better_ than her own intelligence, and it's liberating.

Before she knows it, she's daydreaming. Daydreaming about a world where she doesn't _have_ to know everything, where she can feel that thrill of not knowing whenever she wants, where she can do some magic herself. She daydreams about herself and Austin growing vines that swirl and stretch so high they can't see where they end. She daydreams about allowing herself to _feel_ things and be _consumed_ by things and leave the concrete mundaneness behind her as a distant memory.

She wants to live in that world, be that person, do those things. But her daydream stops abruptly, as if someone took a pair of scissors and said "That's enough for today" and snipped it right in the middle. She feels like she's falling from one of the vines she saw herself and Austin growing as she remembers that that world doesn't exist and that she _can't_ be that person and that she _can't_ do those things. And suddenly she's choking, choking on reality, on the concrete mundaneness, on her _ache_ for those daydreams to be real.

She falls to her knees, coughing and gasping for air, clawing at her chest. Her heart pounds painfully, as if it's trying to break free of her body and go live out the daydreams without her.

A few tears burn like fire down her face, and she wipes them away with the back of her hand. _Deep breaths_ , she tells herself. _In for two, hold for four, out for eight._ She counts the seconds in her head as she does the breathing exercise she learned in grade school, putting all of her focus in repeating the numbers like a record player.

She manages to calm down just as Austin walks up behind her.

"Daisy's on her way. More protection and guides than you can imagine. I – hey, are you okay?" he asks her, walking around in front of her and kneeling down. "Are you crying?"

She clears her throat and shakes her head, standing up and dusting off her pants. "Emotionless Scientist, remember? No crying here," she tells him, trying to brush it off.

He stands up, watching her warily, clearly unconvinced. "Okay…You ready to keep going?"

"Of course." She starts walking ahead, and Austin keeps pace beside her.

 _No more daydreaming_ , she says to herself.

But she's smart, a Scientist _prodigy_. She knows that now that she's started, she isn't going to be able to stop.

* * *

 **hey pals i'm sorry this took so long but i've been on vacation so i have an excuse! and hey this chapter is the longest one yet so hopefully that makes up for it? as always, thank you for reading and for your support and for your reviews. they are sometimes the only thing that gives me the motivation to write, knowing that there are people out there who are still reading and are excited to see what happens next. so thank you so so so much. sorry for being sappy. until next time!**


	7. Chapter 7

Ally squints in the golden-orange rays of sunlight peeking through the canopy of trees overhead. The sun is beginning to set, which means that soon it will be time to stop for the night.

She'd never admit this to Austin, but she doesn't think she can walk much farther before she collapses due to exhaustion and pain in her feet. She tries to distract herself by observing her surroundings and Austin, but every time it only leads to daydreaming, which is dangerous for her. Daydreaming affects her too much; it makes her long for a world that doesn't exist, makes her _ache_ for it. It twists her stomach in knots and makes her heart pound and takes her breath away and turns her mundane reality into a nightmare.

She starts feeling dizzy. Wordlessly, she makes her way to a large tree, sets her backpack down, and sits on the ground with her back against the trunk. She leans her head back and closes her eyes, taking deep breaths and trying to get the images of magic and emotions and _not knowing_ out of her head.

"Whoa – hey, are you okay?" She hears leaves and twigs crunching under Austin's feet as he walks over to her.

She nods, her eyes still closed, her breathing still deep, her head still spinning.

"I don't think you are. First you were crying earlier, then you went all quiet, and now you look like you're gonna pass out. Aren't Scientists supposed to tell the truth?"

"I'm just a little dizzy," she says, not moving from her position. "It's nothing."

"Are you drinking enough water?"

"Yes."

"Drink more anyway."

She hears him rummaging around in her bag, and then he taps a water bottle against the back of her hand and she takes it, downing the entire thing so he'll stop bothering her. She focuses on listening to the gentle cascade of water refilling the bottle.

Suddenly, the back of Austin's hand is on her forehead. She sits up straighter and knits her eyebrows, opening her eyes to look at him crouched beside her. "What are you doing?"

"Making sure you don't have heatstroke." He moves his hand to the back of her neck.

"I'm fine," she insists, shoving his arm away.

"It's hot out. We've been walking all day. You've been acting weird and you're dizzy. That's not a good combination."

"None of this is because of the heat or dehydration. I'm just…thinking too much," she says.

He shifts into a sitting position. "Thinking about what?"

"Scientist stuff."

"You're lying. If you were really thinking of 'Scientist stuff,' you would've explained it in exact detail to make me feel dumb for not understanding, plus you'd never consider it 'thinking too much'. Tell me what's going on. We can't help Dez if there's something wrong with you."

"There's nothing wrong with me," she tells him. Then she starts getting up. "We should keep going, anyway. We're losing daylight."

"I'm making an executive decision. We're done for the day," he says, pulling her back down.

She exhales in frustration and glares at him. "I told you I'm fine! What else do you want from me?!"

"The truth would be nice," he replies calmly.

"I'm telling you the truth. I'm _fine_."

She stands up, but she sees Austin wave his arm in the corner of her eye and suddenly there's a low rumbling sound and she's consumed in darkness. Then, a small orange light appears. She turns toward it, finding herself unsurprised to see that in Austin's hand burns a small fire, illuminating his face.

"Austin, this is ridiculous," she says, looking around. He seems to have formed a fairly large cave around them, but with no exit. All that surrounds them are rocks and dirt.

"What's ridiculous is you insisting that you're fine when there's obviously something wrong."

"This is a waste of time. They could be torturing Dez!"

"We'll get up early in the morning to make up for it." Austin thrusts the palm of his hand forward and downward, and the fire leaps onto the ground, growing slightly but remaining contained. It releases no smoke, only light and heat.

Ally huffs in defeat and sits back down across from Austin, glaring at him over the fire.

"For an emotionless Scientist, you look pretty angry," Austin notes.

"I feel emotions, I just don't act on them," she says, rolling her eyes.

Austin watches her, the fire making his face glow a warm orange and casting shadows under his cheekbones and around his eyes. His eyes reflect the light like miniature fires themselves from within the shadows on his face. They're light brown, almost orange because of the firelight, and they look warm, comforting, nothing like how they used to be.

She relaxes her glare and stares at the magical fire instead. She still feels Austin's eyes on her.

"I just…sometimes wish I didn't have to deal with all the expectations that come with being a Scientist," she finally admits.

Austin remains silent, but she knows he's paying full attention to what she's saying.

"I'm proud to be a prodigy. I'm not wishing away my intelligence. But feeling like I need to know _everything_ about the world is a bit exhausting. If we don't know something, we figure it out. If we can't figure it out, we're inadequate. That's how our society works." She pauses, hoping he'll speak up and stop her from saying the cursed words on the tip of her tongue. He doesn't say a word.

"But maybe there are some things that we aren't _supposed_ to know, like how magic works and where it comes from. And maybe there are things that we do know that we never should've known, like how to mathematically determine the most compatible mates. Of course I like knowing how the world works and figuring things out, but…I don't want to know _everything_." She pauses again, laughing halfheartedly to cover the way her voice is catching in her throat. "That's practically sacrilegious of me to say, isn't it? Intelligence doesn't mean knowing everything, though, right? I'm intelligent; I can figure things out and solve problems. But that shouldn't mean I _have_ to.

"Then again, if I'm not learning everything about everything in the universe, then what kind of Scientist am I? Not knowing is unacceptable. If I'm okay with not knowing…I don't think I know who I am."

She looks up at him again, panic seizing her heart. "I'm having an existential crisis," she tells him. "I find that I want to hug you."

"That, I can do," he finally says, standing up. He walks around the fire and opens his arms.

She stands up too, her heart pounding and her legs shaking, and hugs him around his torso. He wraps his arms around her tightly, warmth radiating off his skin and enveloping her like a blanket. She closes her eyes and rests her cheek against his chest, trying to synchronize her breathing with his to calm down. He smells like lavender and pine and a tiny bit of citrus. She inhales and exhales.

He rests his chin on top of her head. "You're not a bad Scientist for not knowing everything, and you're not a bad Scientist for not wanting to," he tells her. His voice reverberates in his chest, and it comforts her. "You know so much, it'd probably take you ten lifetimes to teach it all to me. There are some things that are better off unknown. And that's okay."

"But…I _like_ the feeling of not knowing some things," she admits quietly. "There's something wrong with me."

"Nah. You're just not a robot. And as much as you try, you never will be. So maybe you'll feel better if you accept the fact that you're human. Crazy smart, but human."

She exhales and nods. "I suppose you're right."

"Occasionally, I do say things that aren't stupid."

She finds herself with a small smile on her face as she pulls away from the hug to look up at him. "Thank you," she says.

He's wearing his own sliver of a smile. "You're welcome. Anything else you wanna talk about?"

She shakes her head, finding that she isn't quite ready to tell him about her increased fascination with magic. "Is there anything _you_ want to talk to _me_ about?" she asks him.

"Nope," he replies immediately. "In fact, we should both probably just go to bed."

"I suppose you're right." She kneels down and pulls the sleeping bag Austin gave her out of her backpack.

"Hopefully your existential crisis will be over by tomorrow," he says, walking to the other side of the fire and setting up his sleeping bag as well.

"Surely it will be. My mind will be rested and refreshed."

"Yeah, that. Sweet dreams, Einstein."

"We don't have a device that can control dreams with us, so you can't assume that my dreams will be sweet," she points out.

"You seem like you're feeling better already," Austin deadpans. "Goodnight."

He pulls his sleeping bag over his head. Ally exhales and crawls into her own sleeping bag. She closes her eyes, and she starts dreaming of magic before she even falls asleep.

* * *

She wakes up to bright sunlight shining red-orange through her closed eyelids. She opens her eyes and sits up, running a hand through her knotted hair. The magical cave is gone. The magical fire is out, the grass it burned over perfectly intact.

She looks over at Austin's sleeping bag. The magical boy is nowhere to be seen.

Panic immediately seizes her heart. His sleeping bag is rumpled, and his backpack sits next to it. _They found him_ , she thinks. _They found him and they took him._

She clambers out of her sleeping bag and stands up, taking a deep breath and looking around. When did he take down the rock cave that surrounded them when she fell asleep? Who took him – Scientists or bad Magicians? Where did they come from and how did they find him? Why did they leave her behind?

She scans their little campsite, searching for answers to any of her questions. Her pounding heart gradually slows to a more regular pace, though she still feels each heartbeat painfully hard against her chest. She tries to calm her mind as she focuses all her attention on figuring out what happened to Austin.

But as she looks in his sleeping bag and backpack for anything missing or any clues as to what happened, she finds herself growing more worried by the second. She isn't sure how long he'll last with his unstable magic so easily affected by his emotions without her intelligence to figure out how to conceal it or clean up the messes it makes. More troubling, she doesn't think she'll last long at all without his magic.

"Hey, what're you doing going through my stuff?" she hears from behind her.

She stands up and turns, eyes wide, her heart pounding again. There he is, standing in front of her with his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised accusingly. Perfectly safe and unscathed, except for a dark purplish smudge stained on his cheek.

"I thought we were doing that whole trusting each other thing now," he says.

She doesn't say anything. Instead, she surges forward and hugs him.

He freezes for a moment, his now-uncrossed arms hovering in the air on either side of her; she feels his chin on her head as he tilts his head down to look at her. Then slowly his arms find their way around her. She inhales the scent of lavender and pine and citrus. She exhales in relief.

"I thought someone found you and took you," she tells him.

He pulls away from her, raising his eyebrows and smiling in amusement. "I woke up to a note from my parents saying Daisy got there safely. I was writing one back thanking them, but I had to smash some blackberries to use the juice as ink, and I didn't want to wake you up. I was just a little way away."

"Well…don't do that again. I was worried."

"You were, weren't you?" he says, his smile growing. "You know, I thought last night was a rarity. I didn't realize how much of a hugger you are."

"I'm not a hugger. I'm just relieved that you're alright."

"So the emotionless Scientist feels worry and relief?"

She rolls her eyes and shoves his chest. He stumbles a few steps back, still smiling. "We've been over this, Austin."

"I'm just saying that for someone who is so adamant about your ability to be unaffected by emotions, your emotions sure do affect you."

"We're losing time," is all she says. Then she starts walking, forging ahead through the sea of trees. She hears him chuckle as he follows her.

The next few days are like carbon copies of each other. Walk all day, stop at sundown, sleep in a magical cave next to a magical fire and wake up in the morning to find the cave gone and the fire out and Austin playing with tiny blizzards or growing flowers or petting an animal and talking to it quietly. Repeat the process.

As each day lulls on and she and Austin exhaust pretty much every topic of conversation – "My favorite color is green." "Why?" "It's the color of nature." "Figures." – she loses herself in daydreams once again.

They don't all revolve around magic anymore. Many of them do: she imagines racing through the clouds on gusts of wind and growing acres of flowers and setting fire to her reality with a wave of her hand. But some of them are more realistic, just slightly altered versions of the world she lives in.

In her imaginary world, she isn't consumed with learning and knowing everything. Right now, instead of going on this journey to rescue Dez from facing the consequences of a crime he didn't technically commit, she's spending time outside with Trish and Dez and Austin, the four of them talking and laughing like the best of friends. Trish laughs as Dez and Austin compete to see who can spin more cartwheels in the grass. She laughs harder when both boys collapse to the ground, their eyes crossed, their cheeks flushed. Ally laughs too. They're all happy – they're all _allowed_ to be happy.

Then her mind pulls her somewhere else. She's on a rooftop on a mountain, overlooking densely packed trees crawling up the mountain and a city at the base of it. Austin is grinning next to her. "What are you waiting for?" he asks. "Scared?" He nudges her toward the edge of the building. "I promise I'll catch you. You lost the game, remember? You promised."

She doesn't know what game she lost or what promise she made. But she's not scared, and she didn't know she was waiting for anything. She looks over at him. His brown eyes look back.

"We'll go together," he says decisively, and grabs her hand firmly in his. Then he steps up onto the ledge of the rooftop, pulling her up next to him. She looks at him, about to ask if he's crazy.

But she knows he wouldn't hear her. His eyes are closed. A small, closed-mouthed smile is etched on his face. Wind blows in ripples across his shirt and tousles his hair. And then he leaps off the building, his grip on her hand so firm he drags her with him.

She screams, but it's drowned out by the wind. The wind that gathers underneath them, thrusting them up into the sky. Austin laughs, and she finds herself laughing too. Music starts playing from somewhere. He grabs her other hand and they dance in and out of the clouds.

She feels a million emotions. In the daydream, she doesn't have to shove them into the tiny, organized, dark compartments in the back of her mind. Here, she lets them consume her, lift her and Austin higher into the air, their laughs echoing off the side of the mountain.

But outside the daydream, she can't do any of that. It isn't real. She shoves the million bubbling emotions into the compartments in the back of her mind and padlocks them shut. She looks over at Austin and wonders how many more emotions those compartments can keep at bay.

* * *

 **hey guys sorry this chapter wasn't very exciting but cutesy moments? it took a long time to write because i didn't know what to write lol i kinda have an idea for the next chapter so hopefully it won't take as long. also i miss talking to u guys i feel so disconnected from all of u lately pls pm me or something so we can chat also if u read this tell me ur favorite color in a review and why bc its fun learning cute random things about people ok thanks for reading i love u guys see u next time**


	8. Chapter 8

"Alright, genius, what's our big plan for this one?" Austin says, looking down at the beach far below the cliff where they've stopped walking. He looks over at her for a few moments, but she continues to look straight ahead, trying to think of something.

She notices people from the city on the beach. If they were to look up, Ally knows she and Austin would be visible. Silently, she grabs his wrist and drags him away from the cliff's edge, enough to ensure that they're out of the line of sight of anyone on the beach.

"We'll have to wait until night, when there's no one on the beach. Then you can get us down and we'll have to travel underwater to make sure no one will see us. Can you create an air bubble or something?"

Austin nods. "So…we just hang out here all day? Seems like kind of a waste."

"We don't have any other choice."

The blond sighs and sits down in the grass, picking at it, a look of boredom already forming on his face. His hair lets off some sparks, then gets tousled by a magical wind, then smokes, as if his magic doesn't know what to do with itself. If Austin notices, he doesn't address it.

Ally goes to pace in the shade of the trees at the edge of the forest a few yards away from Austin. She tries to think of another way to travel that won't jeopardize their safety but that will allow them to keep moving without wasting the day. But her mind won't allow her to focus.

Instead of pacing, she lays down in the grass and stares up at the trees over her head. She wishes that Austin had a power to turn them invisible instead. That way, they could just go through the city and save Dez in a day.

She hears footsteps on the grass and Austin appears in her vision, standing above her. He lays down on the grass with the top of his head a few inches away from the top of hers. He clasps his fingers behind his head and takes a deep breath.

"Ally."

"Yeah?"

"What'll happen if I freak out when we're trying to get Dez out of wherever he is and my powers go all crazy?"

"You'll probably be captured. Or killed on the spot."

"Good to know."

"You sound scared."

"I'm not scared."

She exhales and rolls onto her stomach and rests her chin on the backs of her hands so she can look at him. He does the same, his face closer than she expected it to be.

"What happened to trusting each other?" she asks, smiling slightly as she uses his own words against him.

"I trust you. I just don't like talking about my weaknesses."

"How are you gonna fix them if you ignore them?"

"Maybe they'll go away if I pretend they don't exist." She can tell from the tone of his voice that he knows this won't happen. However, she decides not to press him any further.

"We haven't tried to kill each other yet," she notes, changing the subject.

"Well, we're kinda friends now, aren't we?"

"I'm picky about choosing my friends. Friendships are supposed to uplift someone and are necessary for the best health and wellbeing."

"So you're saying we're not actually friends by your terms," he says, sounding unsurprised.

She smiles a bit. "No, I find that I quite like having you as a friend. You have…opened doors to me that have made my life a little better."

"I put you through an existential crisis."

"I needed to go through it. You benefitted me, and I know I've benefitted you."

"Oh yeah?" he challenges, raising an eyebrow. "How have _you_ benefitted _me_?"

"Well, I'm helping you control your emotions and therefore your powers. I came up with the plan to save Dez. I'm your friend. And I presume my looks and company bring you pleasure, seeing as how you don't go to school with others your age so I doubt you spend time with any eligible mates."

Austin's eyes widen, the brown irises almost drowning in the whites. "Eligible _what_ now?"

"I'm not saying we would ever be mates," Ally explains. "But the human brain rewards itself for satisfying basic needs. That's why you feel so good after eating or drinking when you're very hungry or thirsty. The same goes for sex, and although we obviously aren't engaging in sexual relations, your brain is still probably rewarding you for being alone with a healthy, available possibility."

"I'm gonna pretend to understand what you're saying so we can stop talking about this." As uncomfortable as Austin seems, he doesn't make any move to create distance between them, even though their noses are only a few inches apart.

"I don't see why you're reacting this way. I'm just stating – "

"Well, stop 'just stating.'"

"I quite like looking at you too, if that makes you feel any better," Ally tries. "For the same reason, I'm sure. It's a natural human – "

"Ally. Please learn when to shut your mouth."

She knits her eyebrows. "You're being a bit rude."

"And you're being a bit weird."

Austin rolls onto his back again and closes his eyes. Ally sighs defeatedly and walks over to sit against the trunk of a tree, wondering what she said that was so offensive to Austin.

* * *

Ally sits across from Austin in the shade as the afternoon heat beats down on them. She watches him entertaining himself by creating tiny storms with his hands: a hurricane hovering above his palm, a thunderstorm with rain that disappears just before it lands on him, a blizzard blowing snow in circles around his finger.

She lets herself believe for a moment that she's a Magician too, but that there was a mix-up when she was a baby and she ended up with the Scientists. She twirls her index finger in the air like Austin and wills something to happen.

Much to her surprise, snow starts swirling above her finger in a tiny snowstorm. Her eyes widen and she immediately looks at Austin to make sure he's seeing it. But he's focused on two one-foot-tall dust devils circling each other in front of him. She watches her magical snowstorm again, not daring to slow her twirling finger.

She notices a tiny movement in behind the snowstorm and looks at Austin again. She realizes that while he's using one hand to control the two dust-devils, his other hand rests on the ground beside him. Except that hand isn't just resting; he's twirling his index finger in her direction.

She drops her hand and the snowstorm disappears. She glares at Austin, who seems to take no notice of what's going on.

"You're teasing me," she says angrily.

He looks up at her, the dust in front of him settling to the ground. His eyes are wide and innocent. "Teasing you? For what?"

"For liking magic!"

He smiles slightly. "You like magic? But you're a Scientist."

She crosses her arms. "I thought you were done being rude."

He rolls his eyes, still smiling. "I'm not trying to be rude, Ally. I thought you pretending to be a Magician was cute, so I made it happen for a couple seconds. I'm sorry."

"Cute?"

"Yes."

"Children are cute. Baby animals are cute. How was that cute?" She knits her eyebrows together.

"Different kind of cute. Endearing."

"I see." She looks at him, tilting her head. "You find me endearing?"

"Don't do that. Don't ruin it. Don't do your Scientist-y thing and read into it," he says, shaking his head.

She frowns. "You are quite difficult to understand sometimes," she tells him.

He stands up and walks over to her, holding out his hand. She takes it and he helps her up. "That's the beauty of being human," he says. Then his eyes focus on something behind her. "The sun's setting. Shouldn't be long now."

She turns around to see where the sun is in the sky, her hand slipping out of Austin's. She hadn't realized he was still holding it.

She walks towards the edge of the cliff, the grass crunching under Austin's feet right behind her. She looks down at the beach, where just a few families remain.

"As soon as they leave, we can keep going. We'll have to hurry to make up for lost time," she says.

He steps up beside her, looking out at the colorful sky. "How will we know when we can go back on shore?"

"The ocean feeds into a bay a few miles up the coast. It's outside the city limits. We can come back on land there."

He doesn't say anything. She looks over at him. His hair seems to be on fire, but she realizes that it's just the sun and the orange sky creating a glowing outline around his hair and face. His eyes are closed, and a light breeze tousles his clothes and hair. She's immediately reminded of her daydream from earlier, and she quickly shakes her head and looks away from him.

"What are we gonna do when we save Dez?" he suddenly asks.

"What do you mean?" She avoids looking at him.

"Well, it's not like we can all go home and everything will be back to normal. They'll still wanna know what happened to you, and assuming you don't run off and tell everyone about us, we'll have to disappear so Dez doesn't try to contact us again and get himself in trouble."

"Oh." She's surprised at the tiny pang in her heart at the thought of never seeing or contacting the Magicians – and Austin – again. "I suppose we'll have to figure it out when this is all over."

She feels his eyes on her. "You aren't gonna run off and tell everyone about us after all this, are you?"

She shakes her head, pressing her lips together in a tight line. "Your secret's safe with me."

She sees him watching her out of her peripheral, but she keeps her eyes trained on the horizon. She crosses her arms, suddenly self-conscious and mulling over all of her possible flaws, though she knows it's pointless. She wonders if Austin is using some sort of mind-control magic like his parents that he hasn't told her about.

"Alright," he says after what feels like hours but is actually probably only a few seconds. He turns his head to look at the beach again, and she lets go of a breath she didn't know she was holding.

* * *

 **hi friends i know this chapter is short and i'm sorry BUT the next one is gonna be pretty long and i know it's gonna take me a little while to write so i wanted to give you a lil something before i make you wait too long. i promise there will be more fun and action in the next chapter ((but hopefully you enjoyed this one)) thank you for reading!**


	9. Chapter 9

Ally tries to nudge Austin awake as gently as she can. The snoring blond turns away from her, curling in on himself to keep warm in the absence of his sleeping bag. She exhales and steps over him so he is facing her again.

"Austin," she says as loudly as she dares. "Wake up. We have to go."

Big, sleepy eyes flutter open slowly. He furrows his eyebrows. "Huh?"

"You fell asleep," she tells him. "But we have to go."

Austin sits up and looks around to regain his bearings. "Right," he says, closing his eyes and running a hand through his already-messy hair. "Fly down. Go underwater. Go back to shore at the bay outside city limits."

Ally nods and stands up, Austin following. "Ready?" she asks.

He doesn't reply, but suddenly the two of them are lifted a few feet off the ground and whisked over the edge of the cliff. They soar over the beach and the ocean until they're about a mile and a half away from the shore, and then they plunge into the water like bullets.

Ally holds her breath and closes her eyes as she tumbles through the water, blindly searching for Austin. She feels a bunch of tiny _somethings_ latching onto her, and she starts swimming for what she hopes is the surface. Suddenly, a hand grabs hers and Austin's voice rings loud and clear: "They're just air bubbles. You're okay."

Then the feeling of the air bubbles disappears and she no longer feels the water around her. She risks opening one eye, and then the other. She lets out her breath.

Besides a slight reflection of the moon that reaches them, it's pitch black. She realizes that she and Austin are inside a massive air pocket. As they breathe, she can vaguely see tiny air bubbles break away from it and then come back to keep the air fresh. She looks at him, his bright hair and twinkling eyes the only visible features in the darkness.

"Lead the way," he says, letting go of her hand. "Just like normal swimming."

"Where are we?" she asks him.

"I thought you knew."

"I got disoriented when we hit the water."

"Great."

"Can you safely give us some light?"

He nods, and suddenly a fire appears, hovering over his hand. "My fires won't hurt us."

She bites her lip, looking around at the dimly lit expanse of open water around them. "What if we swim to the surface?" she suggests.

He shakes his head. "We won't be able to see anything that'll help."

Ally frowns. "Maybe there's a sea creature close enough to hear you and you can ask them for help?"

"That could work," he says. Then he closes his eyes.

"Don't you need to say something?" she asks.

"I can do it mentally. I only talk out loud most of the time because it feels more natural. Now shut up so I can focus."

Ally presses her lips together and wraps her arms around herself, the chill of the water surrounding them making her shiver. She moves closer to Austin's fire and tries not to think about what could happen if they don't make it to the bay before morning.

Suddenly, she hears a faint clicking. She instantly recognizes it as a dolphin's call. Austin opens his eyes just as the dolphin appears in the dim light and starts circling their little air bubble.

Austin stares at it intently, and Ally hears it click every so often. Then it starts swimming away. Their air bubble follows it.

"He knows where we're going," Austin says. "He's taking us there."

"I figured as much," Ally replies.

Austin looks at her. "What, no thank you? No 'You _saved_ us, Austin! I need you more than – '"

"Eyes on the water," she interrupts, pushing his cheek to turn his head so he can see the dolphin swimming in front of them.

"You're insufferable," he mutters.

"You find me cute," she says.

"What you just said has nothing to do with what I just said."

"But I'm not wrong."

"Why are you so _difficult_?"

"Because I – _AHHH_!" She shrieks as they're suddenly swept up in a strong current, picking up speed as the cool water whips around them. The dolphin is still swimming steadily ahead of them, seemingly unfazed by the change in speed.

Austin lets out a yell of surprise too, and they start tumbling as he loses control of their air bubble. The fire hovering above his hand goes out, and they're plunged in darkness. A moment later she feels his arm wrap around her waist and their air bubble stabilizes. Another fire appears over his free hand, and she sees the dolphin still ahead of them.

She looks over at him. He's staring at the dolphin, clearly focused, his arm still tight around her.

Then suddenly she can't see anything outside their air bubble. Austin looks just as confused as she is.

But then she can see again. Their air bubble is gone and they're standing on dry land. Her mind immediately starts going on overdrive trying to figure out how any of this is possible, but she's interrupted by someone grabbing her arm.

"Hey – " She starts, trying to pull away from their grip.

"Ally, it…it was a trap," Austin says, two large men holding each of his arms.

"A – what?"

"I'm sorry – "

He's cut off when both of them are dragged by their captors along a wooden dock, the dolphin swimming in the water below them. Ally can see the water churning as Austin tries to get them out of this, but his magic doesn't seem to be working. She makes a mental note to help him learn to subdue his fear if they're ever freed.

They walk under a massive gray archway and into what seems to be some sort of palace, filled with ornate sea-themed decorations. She looks up at the ceiling and notices a large chandelier made of some sort of crystals that seem to be radiating their own light.

"Where exactly are we being taken?" she asks the men holding her arms. Neither of them respond. "We've done nothing wrong," she says. "We'd really just like to leave – "

"Quiet," snaps the man holding Austin's right arm. He opens two tall wooden doors and Austin and Ally are led into an even larger room than the first one.

The room is empty save for some of the glowing crystals hanging from the walls and a single chair at the other end of the room. Sitting in the chair is a young woman – Ally presumes she's in her twenties – wearing a crown on her head.

As they approach the woman, Ally realizes the chair is a throne made of bright red coral and the crown is made of beautiful shells and pearls. The woman's ocean-blue gown and sheer, sparkling cape ripple over her body as though the fabric was made from the sea itself. Her silky red hair falls elegantly over her shoulders. Her sea-green eyes seem to pierce right through Ally's soul.

Austin and Ally are forced to their knees by the men holding them. The woman looks down at them distastefully.

"One of the patrols found these intruders outside the city, Your Majesty," one of the men says. "She says the boy is a Nature Magician and the girl is a Scientist."

The royal woman's eyes go wide for a moment before narrowing as she glares at Austin. "A Magician aligning himself with a Scientist?"

"Our friend was taken, and – "

"Another Magician?" she cuts him off.

"A Scientist. A good one. We're trying to rescue him."

"So you sympathize with the Scientists, do you? Well – "

"I don't think _sympathize_ is the right word," Austin says.

"Do not interrupt the queen when she is speaking." One of the men tightens his grip on Austin's arm, and he winces.

"Guards, send this Magician and his Scientist friend to the dungeon. I'll decide what to do with them later," the queen orders.

The guards let go of Austin and Ally's arms. She's about to grab Austin and run, but with one flick of a guard's wrist, the ground they're standing on disappears and they fall through a clear tube deeper into the ocean and then into a clear dome. They land hard on the sandy ocean floor in a cell with a barred door made from pale pink crystals. Ally stands up and walks over to them, but as soon as she touches them she knows they're too strong to break. She looks over at Austin, who's still sitting on the floor.

He thrusts his hand towards them and then sighs defeatedly, shaking his head. "Whatever those bars are made of is what's blocking my powers. I think those crystals are all over the city. Maybe the Magicians here have an immunity to them."

"So we're stuck here," Ally says.

"You never cease to amaze me with your deduction skills and intelligence."

"Sarcasm isn't going to help us escape."

"Neither is stating the obvious."

Ally takes a deep breath and pushes her annoyance to the back of her mind. "Do you have any ideas?" she asks the blond.

"We could try to dig our way out through the sand," he suggests.

Ally shakes her head. "It's too compact."

Austin frowns, crossing his legs and staring down at his intertwined hands in his lap. "This is all my fault," he says. "I should've known this would be a trap."

"Blaming yourself is both irrational and counterproductive. You had no way of knowing we were being tricked and sitting here sulking isn't doing anything to get us out of here."

He shrugs. "We wouldn't be here in the first place if it wasn't for me. Now Dez is gonna die and we probably will, too."

"Your negativity is quite discouraging," she tells him.

"I'm feeling quite discouraged."

She groans in frustration and kneels down in front of him. When he doesn't look at her, she grabs his face and raises his eyes to meet hers. "We're going to get out of this. With your magic and my brains – "

"I don't have magic in here, remember?" he interrupts, his brooding unfazed by her attempts at a pep talk.

Ally resists the urge to roll her eyes at him. "Austin, you're supposed to be the optimistic one. Just… _think_. I know you and I can come up with a way out. But in order to do that, I need you to be a little more positive. Push your emotions back so they don't affect you, remember?"

Austin stares at her, his sad brown eyes narrowing slightly and taking on a more accusatory glint as he pulls her hands off his face. "Right, because pushing back _your_ emotions has worked so well for you. You're miserable constantly because all you do is focus on facts and figures and science and whatever, and whenever you _do_ let yourself have a little bit of personality or imagination, it makes you even _more_ miserable because you have to push it away again. I don't wanna live like that."

"I'm not asking you to live like that. I'm just asking you to ignore the discouraging thoughts so we can focus on thinking of a plan."

He opens his mouth to say more, but he's interrupted by childish giggling coming from above them. Austin knits his eyebrows together and looks up at the clear tube directly over their heads. Ally pulls him out of the way just before another person falls into their cell.

"Austin! Ally!"

"Daisy?" Ally says, frowning as the little girl runs over and hugs the two of them.

"Some birds came and told me that you and Austin were supposed to be somewhere but you didn't come out of the ocean so then I came to help you!" she tries to explain.

"Daisy, it's way too dangerous here – " Austin starts.

"Your mommy and daddy didn't try to stop me."

"Did you leave while they were asleep without telling them?" he asks.

The young Shapeshifter bites her lip. "Maybe…"

Ally looks at Austin, only to catch him already looking at her. "Well, at least I'm not sulking anymore, I guess," he says.

She smiles slightly. "Okay, Daisy," she says, looking at the girl again, "did you come in here with a plan?"

"Yeah! To help you!"

Ally's smile fades, but she quickly plasters it back on her face. "Good plan."

"The people here wear pretty necklaces that look like those," Daisy says, pointing to the crystalline bars of the cell. "It was harder to do magic around them, but then when I went away from them it was easier."

Ally looks at Austin. "So if we get you far enough away from the bars, you can do magic again," she says.

"That's painfully obvious. Why didn't we think of that before?"

"Because you were sulking and I was trying to get you to stop sulking."

"Right."

Ally looks around their little cell, but it's pretty empty. She meets Austin's eyes again. "If you could reach the tube, do you have the upper body strength to pull yourself up high enough to use your magic again?"

He raises his eyebrows. "You seriously have to _ask_ if I have enough upper body strength?"

Ally glances at his arms and abdomen and swallows. "No, I suppose not." She focuses on his face. "I'll get down and you can stand on my back to reach the tube."

"Ally, I'll crush you."

"I'm stronger than I look."

"I don't doubt that you're strong. But you're tiny. I don't wanna break you."

"We don't have any other options."

"We can think of something – "

"Don't fight!" Daisy complains.

"We're not fighting," Austin tells her. Then he looks at Ally. "If I break you, it's your fault."

"And if you _don't_ break me, I'm serving you a hot platter of I-Told-You-So as soon as we get out of here."

"Oh, I hate you," he tells her. But she can tell that he doesn't really mean it.

She shoots him an innocent smile and then gets down on all fours directly under the tube. Austin places one foot on her back and takes a deep breath.

"Sorry for this," he says. Then he steps his other foot up. She winces and grunts under his weight, but she holds herself steady. She can feel him lifting his weight off her, and as soon as his feet leave her back she looks up at him.

He hoists himself up the tube, pressing his hands and feet against the walls and shuffling up slowly. Once he's a couple of yards away from them, Ally feels a gust of air gathering around her. She grabs Daisy's hand just as the two of them are lifted up through the tube, the air picking up Austin when they reach him.

"I told you so," she tells him.

"Shut up."

"This is so fun!" Daisy squeals.

"Shhh," Ally tells her. "We can't let anyone hear us."

"Oh. This is so fun!" Daisy whisper-yells.

When they reach the top of the tube, Austin pushes up on the ceiling. "How did you get in here?" he whispers to Daisy.

Daisy shrugs. "I dunno. I saw the bad guys do it, so I did what they did and it worked."

"It probably only opens from the outside," Ally says.

"So we're back to square one?" Austin asks defeatedly.

Ally nods, and the three of them slowly drift back down into the cell.

"Wait…am I stuck here too?" Daisy asks Ally with a frown.

"Unless you have a secret way out," Ally replies.

Daisy frowns more. "I'm scared."

"Don't be scared," Austin tells her, kneeling down to meet her gaze. "Remember those bad guys me and Ally saved you from? This won't be _nearly_ as bad as that. And we're gonna find a way out of here."

"Promise?" Daisy asks him.

"Promise."

The next few days are slow and agonizing. Fortunately, all their food is sent down through the tube so they don't have to worry about anyone seeing Daisy, but that also means that they have no way to convince or bribe anyone to help them.

Ally has been trying nonstop to think of a way out of this cell for however long they've been in here now, but anything that comes to mind has some major flaw that makes it impossible. She's taken to pacing the length of the cell in an attempt to walk off her frustration with herself. Austin isn't happy about it.

"Can't you just sit down?"

"No."

"Your pacing is stressing me out."

"It helps me think."

"Don't fight," Daisy complains.

"We're not fighting," Austin and Ally snap at her simultaneously.

The little girl frowns, her lower lip quivering. Ally sighs and walks over to her, sitting next to her. Austin approaches her other side.

"We didn't mean to say it like that," Ally tells her gently. "We just…really wanna get out of here. Don't you?"

Daisy nods, a single tear creating a streak in the dust covering her cheeks. "But it doesn't help when you guys fight."

"We aren't fighting with each other," Austin says.

"Then why are you yelling and saying mean things? You sound like the bad guys."

"We're not like them," Austin insists. "Me and Ally just think a little differently. Sometimes we snap at each other because of it. But we aren't fighting."

"Promise?"

"Promise," Austin says. "We're not mad at each other. Or you. We just wanna find a way out and keep you safe."

Daisy bites her lower lip and nods. Then she looks over at Ally, climbs into her lap, and hugs her. Austin ruffles Daisy's frizzy hair and then stands up to start pacing himself.

Ally shoots him a pointed look over Daisy's shoulder, rubbing the little girl's back gently. Austin shrugs and runs a hand through his hair, walking over to the crystal bars of the cell and examining them. Ally watches as he grabs a bar in each hand and tries to pull them apart or break them – as if that'll work – and fights the urge to criticize the redundancy of his futile attempt.

She tears her eyes away from his arms before her thoughts catch up with her pounding heart. She can't deal with anything like that right now.

It isn't long before Daisy falls asleep in Ally's arms. She gently moves Daisy's sleeping body into a more comfortable position. Austin walks over and sits next to her, pulling his knees up to his chest and leaning his back against the wall.

"I don't like not having magic," he says quietly.

Ally looks over at him. There's a frustrated pout on his face. "What happened to you hating your powers?" she asks him.

He leans his head back against the wall and looks over at her, his pout turning into a small smile. "If you're trying to force me to learn some stupid lesson – "

"I'm just saying, your powers would be pretty helpful right about now."

"Yeah, yeah. I don't see your super-brain doing much to help us either."

She rolls her eyes good-naturedly. "Super-brain, huh?"

"It's the scientific term for it. You should know that." He's smiling at her, his eyes twinkling like the crystals blocking his magic.

"You're cute," she tells him, shifting her position against the wall so she can try to get some sleep without waking up Daisy.

"You think I'm cute?"

"No."

"But you just said – "

"Shhh. Time for bed."

She sees Austin grinning out of her peripheral. "You think I'm _cute_ ," he sing-songs quietly.

"I'm a Scientist, Austin. I think you're reading too far into that statement – "

"You're a Scientist. You don't have any opinions or feelings ever. If you think I'm cute, that's a pretty big deal, huh?"

"Just shut up and go to sleep."

"Okay, okay," he says, that stupid smile still on his face. She mentally slaps herself for being so careless as to say something like that out loud. She knows he'll never let her live it down now.

Suddenly, his head drops down onto her shoulder. She frowns and looks down at him. His eyes are closed and he's still smiling. She resists the urge to smack him.

"Goodnight, Ally."

Sighing defeatedly, she rests her head on top of his and closes her eyes as well. "Goodnight, Austin."

As she falls asleep, she tries not to think about how comforting his steady breathing is beside her or how soft his hair is against her cheek. But she can already feel those emotions she's been working so hard to keep at bay starting to consume her.

* * *

 **hi friends i meant to make this longer but it was taking me so long to update that i just decided to make the second half into a different chapter. sorry for the long wait but i hope you enjoyed!**

 **EDIT: sorry if any of you got excited for an update and were disappointed. as I went back and reread this I realized there were a couple mistakes that I couldn't stand not fixing lol**


	10. Chapter 10

Austin wakes her up by flicking her forehead repeatedly. She opens her eyes and sits up, preparing to snap at him, but then she sees a sleeping Daisy right next to her and decides to save it for later.

"What?" she whispers, looking up at him.

"I can't sleep and I don't wanna be alone," he says.

She sighs, closing her eyes and running a hand through her hair. "You woke me up because you were _lonely_?"

"I thought we could talk. Maybe come up with a plan without worrying about Daisy distracting us or getting scared."

"The brain functions best after adequate sleep."

"I'm sorry for waking you up."

She presses her lips together. "Any new ideas?"

The blonde boy shakes his head. "I'm wracking my brain, honest. But now that we know I can get up into that tube and use some of my powers, maybe we can revisit some of our old plans that we scrapped since I didn't have magic."

Daisy shifts in her sleep. Ally stands up, grabs Austin's wrist, and drags him to the back corner of the cell, as far away from Daisy as possible. She feels his eyes on her the whole time. His hands are shaking.

She sits down against the wall, pulling him with her. Then she looks at him, examines the tension in his face and the worry in his eyes. She grabs his hands and presses his palms against each other. He looks down at them and then back up at her.

"We're going to get out of here. Freaking out is only going to disrupt your ability to think rationally."

"I'm not freaking out," he says quietly.

She gives him a look. "And I'm not a Scientist," she replies.

He bites his lip and looks down at his lap. She lets go of his hands and watches him take a deep breath.

"Do you know how long we've been in here?" he asks her after a while.

"No."

"Neither do I. And every day we spend in here is one less day we have to find Dez before they…do whatever they're going to do to him."

"I know," she says. "So we need to think of a way to escape. But to do that, we need to be calm and think logically. What are some things we thought of before that needed magic?"

"Me trying to find another animal to help us."

"That would be risky. Any of them could be patrols. What about breaking the bars?"

Austin shakes his head. "My magic is still weak up in that tube. I don't think I'll be able to do anything to the crystals themselves. Maybe I could wait in the tube and keep the trapdoor open when they send down food."

"They'd immediately know we were trying to escape."

"You're right." He looks down for a moment, then back up at her. "We could send Daisy up. She could turn into something they wouldn't notice, like an insect, and then hide until the guards leave. Then at least she could get out and get home, and maybe send some not-evil animals to help us."

"I like that idea," Ally says. "We need to get her safe before we try escaping ourselves."

Austin nods. "And they don't even know she's here. It shouldn't be too hard for her to get out unnoticed. Besides, she's a smart girl."

Ally looks across the cell at the peacefully sleeping Daisy. "Yes, she is. Although it was quite foolish of her to just come running in with no plan."

"She's not gonna want to leave without us," Austin tells her.

She looks at him again. "I'm sure she'll be fine knowing that she'll be safe."

Austin shakes his head. "We can't tell her the actual plan. She won't go through with it if she knows we're not going with her."

"Why not? Her own self-preservation should be plenty of incentive to get out without us."

Austin rolls his eyes. "Ally, some of us are human enough to care about other people and do stupid things to be with those people."

"Daisy's a child. Her sense of morals hasn't fully developed yet. At her age, children are only really concerned with themselves."

"She doesn't need morals. She loves us. And if she's so concerned with herself, then we can make the argument that being with us is in her own self-interest because she would be devastated if she never saw us again."

Ally gives him a look. "Which one of us is a Psychology Specialist? I know what I'm talking about."

Austin shifts so he's on his knees and sitting back on his heels, looking down at her with a strange look of earnest. "I don't doubt that you do. I'm sure you know the science of the mind and how it works inside-out and upside-down. But the thing is, humans don't always operate scientifically. We have emotions and thoughts and imaginations – "

"I know that. I'm still human, you know."

Austin exhales in frustration and grabs her by the shoulders. "Ally, listen to me. Humans are the smartest species in the world. But we're also the dumbest. We make irrational decisions based on our emotions and we don't always fulfill science's predictions. I know you Scientists have pretty much mastered the act of choosing the most reasonable and intelligent paths in life, but you guys will never be perfect. No one is. Dez made the stupid decision of befriending a Magician. Science couldn't have predicted that, could it?"

Ally frowns. "I'm sure that he considered the consequences of becoming friends with you and believed the benefits to him outweighed them. Knowing all the variables, it probably could've been predicted – "

"What about you, huh?" Austin interrupts. "I kidnapped you. My existence has been banned by your government. You could face the same consequences as Dez if we get caught. You even said you'd turn both of us in. Morally, you could justify losing two lives to save what you thought were more. And you're smart enough to know that the best decision for your own self-preservation would be to follow the law. But here you are, in a cell with two Magicians, on an illegal quest to save your friend because he doesn't deserve to be punished even though he broke the law and you care about him."

Ally remains silent. She wonders how Austin can sound so frustrated and earnest and powerful while still speaking quietly enough to not wake Daisy. She also tries to find a fault in his argument, but she knows he's right. Does this mean she's spent her whole life learning about a flawed science? And if scientific findings in psychology can't always yield accurate predictions, how can she know what else the Scientists could be wrong about?

After a few moments, Austin speaks again, most of the frustration in his voice gone. "And correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you care about me and Daisy, too. I'm sure science would predict that you would hate us because we shouldn't be alive and it's your civic duty to turn us in. But you care about us. And I doubt you'd be willing to escape this cell alone and leave us behind."

Ally looks away from him, watching Daisy as she shifts in her sleep. "So what are we gonna tell her?" she asks quietly.

Austin drops his hands from her shoulders. "We'll tell her we have our own plan to get out that's a little riskier, so she needs to escape and get back home and we'll meet her there after we get out and save Dez."

"You think she'll believe that?"

"She's still a kid. And she trusts us."

Ally takes a deep breath and nods, looking over at Austin. He's sitting against the wall next to her again, his eyes still on Daisy. But then he turns his head to look at her, his face much closer to hers than she anticipated. His brown eyes sparkle as if his magic is hiding in his irises.

"Just for the record, I care about you too," he tells her.

Her heart pounds. _Not right now. We need to focus._

She nods a little faster than normal. "I know." She hates the way her voice cracks as her heart pounds again.

Then he leans the back of his head against the wall, facing Daisy again, and closes his eyes. Ally does the same, taking deep breaths and reciting the periodic table in her head to calm herself down.

 _Hydrogen. Get a hold of yourself. Helium. You can't deal with this right now. Lithium Beryllium Boron. You can't deal with this ever. Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen. Is there less Oxygen in here than there was before? That's ridiculous. Why can't you breathe? Fluorine. Neon. No emotions. Sodium. Science is factual, practical. Magnesium. But humans aren't. Aluminum Silicon Phosphorus Sulfur. Nonononono. Chlorine. You're incompatible in every way. Your friendship – Argon – is rocky at best. Potassium. Calcium. You don't have feelings for him. You can't. Push them back push them back. What comes next? You've known the periodic table by heart since before you could ride a bike. Stupid stupid stupid stupid._

Her breathing picks up again as she wracks her brain for the next element. Austin's arm brushing against hers doesn't make anything easier. She risks peeking over at him.

His eyes are still closed, and his mouth is hanging open slightly. His knees are pulled up to his chest and one arm rests on them while the other supports him on the ground next to her.

She shifts, accidentally bumping his arm hard enough that he might wake up. He stays fast asleep, though, so she closes her eyes again, taking another deep breath.

Suddenly she feels his hand on top of hers on the ground. Her heart pounds again and she looks over at him, but if he's awake he doesn't show it. She glances down at their hands and then tries her best to go to sleep.

 _Scandium. It's Scandium._ She yawns, her heart rate finally slowing down. _Titanium. Vanadium. You're okay. Chromium._ Her head feels heavy. It drops onto his shoulder. _Manganese. Iron. He cares about you. Cobalt. Nickel. Copper._

* * *

The plan is in place. Daisy knows what to do. She didn't doubt for a second that they would meet her as soon as they rescued Dez with their genius plan.

She knows their food will be sent down soon. Austin and Daisy are already hovering as close to the top of the tube as they dare so they can be ready when the time comes.

She paces the length of the cell, wringing her hands and trying to keep herself calm. Putting aside her moment of weakness last night, she's only worried about Daisy getting back to Austin's house safely. To get her mind off her worry, she tries to brainstorm ideas for her and Austin to escape once Daisy's in the clear.

Her stomach rumbles painfully. Since Daisy got here, she and Austin have each been giving half of their meals to her. And since they only get one meal per day, both of them have lost too much weight than is probably healthy. Maybe when she and Austin finally get full meals again, they'll be able to think better and figure out a way to escape.

Suddenly, she hears the familiar faint popping of the trap door opening far above her. She doesn't hear anything else, which she optimistically decides to take as a good sign. Silence means a successful escape. Right?

Before she can begin going through all the possible bad scenarios in her head, she hears the suction of the door closing again and Austin drops out of the tube holding two containers of food a couple seconds later.

She looks at him hopefully. "Well?"

"Went off without a hitch. She's okay."

Ally exhales in relief, finally relaxing after so many days of worrying about Daisy. "That's good. Good. She's okay."

Austin nods and sits on the ground. She follows suit. He opens both containers and hands her one. She starts eating its contents without risking a look at the sickening excuse for food inside.

"So," Austin says, grimacing at the taste of his first bite, "any ideas for how _we_ can escape? Because I have one."

"Go for it."

"I could get up in the tube and try to break one of the cell walls. I think outside the dungeon is a small bit of the air pocket surrounding it and then open ocean outside of that."

Ally shakes her head. "Look around." She points to the walls, which are sparkling with minerals. "They all have the crystals embedded in them. If you can't break the bars, I doubt you'll be able to break the walls."

Austin frowns as he looks at the walls. "Well, that sucks. We'll think of something else, though."

"There's the optimism."

He smiles, and a warm feeling spreads across her chest. Once she cleans out her container of food, she stacks it in his empty one and tosses them to the corner of the room where they've acquired a nice pile of food containers.

"When we get out of here, I'm growing us a fifty-acre orchard and we're just gonna eat fruit for, like, hours," he tells her, setting a hand on the ground by his side and leaning on it. "And there'll be grape vines as far as you can see."

She lets herself give him a small smile, feeling her cheeks heat up. _Stop it._ She hopes he can't see the pink tint in the dim lighting of their cell. "Sounds too good to be true," she says.

He grins. "I guess we'll have to actually escape for you to find out for yourself."

Her smile spreads farther across her face before she can stop it. "I guess so."

"How do you think Dez is doing right now?" Austin asks her.

"He's probably scared. They've probably interrogated him already. Hopefully they didn't find out anything about you and he's just sitting in prison."

Austin nods. "We gotta save him, Ally."

"I know we do. But then what? When we save him, he becomes a fugitive, the government knows you exist, and I become a criminal."

"I guess we'll have to go into hiding. Nobody knows where I live, remember? We can all just stay there."

She frowns, the realization of the magnitude of what they're going to do falling over her. "I'll never see my family again."

"You can see them – "

She looks at him. "They see me, they turn me in. They're law-abiding citizens. They won't accept me caring about Dez as a valid reason to break the law."

"That's kinda sucky. They're your parents."

"Scientists push back their emotions, remember?"

"I mean, yeah, but…there are exceptions, aren't there?"

She shakes her head. "They'll turn me in." Then she takes a deep breath. "But it's okay. I'm saving my friend and a community of innocent Magicians."

Austin shoots her a small smile. "You're doing the right thing."

"Everyone else would say otherwise."

He shrugs. "Sometimes you gotta dig a little deeper under the surface and do what you think is right rather than what everyone else says is right. Everyone may say that robbing a bank is the right thing to do, but you know it's not."

Ally laughs quietly, then she freezes. "Dig. That's it."

"That's what?"

"Remember when you originally suggested we should dig out of her but I said the sand was too compact?" He nods. "Well, with your magic, it should be no problem. And there are no crystals in the sand."

Austin smiles. "You're right."

She grins. "We have a way out."

"We have a way out," he echoes. "C'mon, we've got no time to lose. Help me into the tube."

She shifts onto all fours under the tube and Austin climbs up into it yet again. A few seconds later, a neat circle of sand by the outside wall of their cell collapses in on itself to form a tunnel. Not a moment later, water fills the tunnel and floods into the cell.

"Austin, we have to leave. Now."

The blonde boy drops down from the tube, his feet splashing in the water surrounding them.

"How long can you hold your breath?" he asks her.

"I don't know."

"Good enough for me."

He grabs her hand and runs over to the tunnel, diving headfirst into the water and pulling her along with him as he swims in the darkness like a bullet. She swims along behind him without letting go of his hand, and she squeezes it tightly to tell him that she can't hold her breath much longer.

"Just hang in there," he says loud and clear, as though they're standing on land.

When they finally emerge from the tunnel into the open water, an air bubble immediately forms around them. She inhales deeply to calm her screaming lungs as they speed off in what she hopes Austin knows is the right direction.

"You can breathe underwater?" she asks him.

"I'm a Nature Magician. Of course I can breathe underwater," he mutters, his focus clearly on getting them as far away from that strange deep-sea kingdom as possible.

She decides it's best to remain silent for the remainder of their underwater trip so Austin can concentrate. With her adrenaline and surprise subsided, she realizes that they're in the dark. She breathes a sigh of relief; if they had escaped during the day, they surely would've gotten caught.

"Do you know where we are?" he asks her.

She shakes her head. "Take us to the surface."

He does as she says and they poke their heads out of the water. She sees the twinkling lights of the city on the shore a couple of miles away.

"So we're going there?" Austin points to the darkness to the left of the lit-up town.

"Yeah."

Austin nods. Then he plunges them back below the surface and they speed towards the shore. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply, the events of the past few minutes hitting her all over again. She wonders if they would've been killed if they hadn't escaped in time.

Austin suddenly grabs her hand just as she stumbles on the sand suddenly under her feet. She opens her eyes and sees the sloping shore ahead of them leading to the surface. They trudge up the hill and finally emerge on the beach. Still holding hands, they walk into the woods lining the sand, and Austin creates a rock cave around them. A magical fire ignites on the ground. Ally looks at Austin, who immediately turns his head to look at her.

They simultaneously wrap their arms around each other. His grip is tight around her shoulders, and one of his hands cradles the back of her head. She takes a deep breath, accepting the fact that no matter how many elements she recites in her head, the thoughts and feelings running through her head won't go away. She doesn't know whether it's those feelings or the fact that she's exhausted or both, but she's having trouble thinking straight through the fog that seems to be clouding her mind.

He leans back to look down at her, and she lifts her head to meet his gaze. Her heart pounds. She wonders if he can hear it.

"We did it," he says, his eyes and face glowing in the warm glow of the fire.

Her foggy brain doesn't register how she responds until after she sees his reaction. His arms drop from around her and he takes a step back, looking at her in confusion. "What?"

She shivers in the absence of his warmth. "Can I kiss you?" she asked him. Out loud. With no warning. _Stupid stupid stupid._

"Um – what I, um, I mean, uh – " She stumbles over her words like a child trying to learn to read. She may as well be a deer in headlights. A Scientist in firelight doesn't seem that far off.

"It's the adrenaline, yeah?" he asks her gently, over his initial shock. "We're both tired. We saved each other's lives. By tomorrow morning I'm sure you'll have some Psychology Specialist wisdom to explain it."

She hopes he can't see her red face in the darkness. "Um, yeah. Yeah, you're right. Sorry for, um, just…saying that."

"Don't worry about it," he says. "Like you said before, we're both attractive and we can't help those natural human mating urges or whatever."

"Right. Yeah. I'm just…really out of it, I guess."

"I don't blame you. We both need sleep."

She nods. "But, um, even though I'll have an explanation about this tomorrow, can we just…not talk about it?"

Austin pretends to zip his lips and walks around to the other side of the fire. "It never happened."

 _Stop being so calm about this. Give me a reason to stop feeling things for you._ She watches him as he grows a moss of some sort to use as a bed and pillow, and then he does the same for her.

She lays down, closing her eyes immediately and trying to push her embarrassment from her mind. _No feelings no distractions no feelings no distractions no feelings no distractions._

"Goodnight, Ally," she hears as she drifts off to sleep.

She wishes he had kissed her. And she hates herself for it.

* * *

 **hey guys i'm really tired so hopefully the end of this chapter isn't trash. i just really wanted to update bc it's getting good now. hopefully you guys liked this chapter despite the possibly questionable writing quality. i love you all and thanks for reading!**


	11. Chapter 11

She wakes up slowly, her mind trying to resist the return to consciousness. She doesn't want to open her eyes for fear that she's still in some unknown dream where she's lying on a cloud rather than the hard floor of the cell.

But then she realizes there's too much light coming through her closed eyelids. The air is too fresh, and there shouldn't be a cool breeze blowing over her. She opens her eyes and sits up, and when she sees her moss bed and Austin a little ways away growing fruit trees, the events of the night before are brought to the front of her mind.

The escape. The woods they're in. The question she asked Austin. The _embarrassment_.

It's even worse now that she's rested and thinking clearly. She asked to _kiss_ him. She let her emotions influence her actions. She let a pretty face and strong arms and twinkly eyes and a warm smile and magical powers influence her emotions. What kind of Scientist _is_ she?

She shakes her head quickly to try to escape her thoughts and stands up, busying herself with pretending to be figuring out where they are. It doesn't work.

"Hey, you're up!" she hears Austin call from his field of food. "You hungry?"

She doesn't look at him or say anything. She walks over to where he is and focuses her attention on all the plants instead of him.

"I've got every kind of fruit you can think of, some vegetables, uh, some mint leaves, if you're into that, I dunno. I can make a waterfall if you're thirsty. I also grew a maple tree for syrup. Even though there's nothing to put it on, it's a breakfast feast staple, you know?"

She nods. "Mmhm."

She feels his eyes on her, but she can't figure out what she's supposed to do. Heat rises to her cheeks and she wishes she could curl up in a hole and hide. She mentally slaps herself for all the self-conscious criticism running through her mind. No wonder Scientists push back their emotions. She can't handle this.

"So…are you gonna eat something? I mean, not to rush you, but we lost a lot of time and who knows whether Dez – "

"Right. Yes," she interrupts. She turns her back on him and cringes at her sudden awkwardness, but she covers it by pretending to stretch. Then she walks up to the first tree she sees and picks an orange off of it.

"What, no criticism about how the tree roots will somehow screw with the ground in the city and we'll be figured out?"

She shakes her head, peeling the orange and staring at it intently.

"Okay, what's up?" he asks her.

"Nothing's up," she replies.

"Then why aren't you talking my ear off like you normally do?"

"Nothing to say."

"You always have something to say."

"That's not true."

"Ally," he says with a slight tone of exasperation, grabbing her shoulders, "what's wrong?"

She freezes at the contact, her heart pounding. _Hydrogen Helium Lithium Beryllium Boron._ "Nothing is wrong."

He sighs and drops his arms, apparently giving up. "Fine. Don't tell me." He starts walking away.

 _Turn around. I would've cracked._ She starts eating the orange in her hands and risks glancing up at him. His head is down as he walks towards a different fruit tree. _Turn around, you idiot._

After filling up on everything Austin grew and then packing the leftovers into bags made from leaves, the two of them set off again into the woods.

"Before you woke up I went exploring. The city is that way." He points to their right. "So if we keep going like this, we'll eventually run into wherever we're going, right?"

She nods. "We'll have to find a way to check every so often to make sure we're staying on the outskirts of the city and not accidentally walking past it."

"Let's cross that bridge when we get to it," he says. "So are you gonna tell me what's wrong now?"

"I told you, nothing's wrong." _Just tell him._

"And I know you're lying. No wonder you Scientists are always supposed to tell the truth. You guys _suck_ at lying."

Ally sighs. "I just…don't wanna talk about it."

He's silent for a while. He shoves his hands in his pockets, looking at the ground. "I didn't mean to embarrass you," he mutters hesitantly. She looks over at him, pressing her lips together in a tight line and trying to ignore the heat rising to her cheeks. He glances at her and then quickly looks away. "I know I said I'd forget about it, but…clearly you can't."

Tiny flowers start sprouting up around his feet each time he takes a step. If he notices, he doesn't seem to care. "I don't want you beating yourself up over it or being embarrassed and awkward around me for the rest of our lives. I know it was the adrenaline and hunger and lack of sleep. I honestly didn't think any more of it. So you shouldn't either."

She swallows, her heart pounding. She tries to ignore the feelings beating against the walls she built around them in her mind. They can't get out again. She'll never be able to put them back if they do.

She manages a small nod, and that seems to be the end of it. They continue walking in silence, and although she's internally panicking because of her growing feelings for him, she does feel more relaxed around him now that they've sorted out the events of last night.

* * *

After a few hours, they're forced to stop in a thick patch of trees at the edge of the woods. In front of them is a fairly large clearing, perfectly in view of anyone who happens to be near the city limits. They have to wait for nightfall to continue.

"I'd be much more useful if I could, like, turn us invisible or something," Austin notes as he sits against a tree and pulls up some of the grass at his side.

"But you can't. So stop complaining." She picks up a pebble next to where she's sitting and tosses it at him.

Austin lifts a hand and the pebble stops in midair for a split second before dropping to the ground. "I'm just worried."

"I know."

"We could always just test our luck and go for it. It's probably been almost two weeks. I don't think Dez has much time left before they – "

"It's possible that they won't even do anything except maybe imprison him. Then I can just go in and explain that my disappearance wasn't his fault, they'll believe me, and no one even needs to find out about you."

"Okay, Scientist. It's _possible_. But according to your genius calculations, how _probable_ is it?" he asks her, raising an eyebrow.

She exhales. "Unlikely. But Austin, we keep having this exact same conversation over and over again. It isn't changing anything."

"You know what else isn't changing anything? Sitting around and doing nothing just because there's a _slight_ chance someone will be in the middle of nowhere and see us in the thirty seconds it would take to run across that clearing."

"If we get caught – "

"Which we _wouldn't_."

Ally closes her eyes and counts to ten. "I find that I would quite like to yell at you right now," she tells him.

"What's stopping you?" She opens her eyes. Smoke is curling off his hair. "I'm serious," he says. "Yell at me. Go for it. Act like a real human being for _once_ and maybe you can also prove my point that we won't get caught in the process."

She glares at him. "I don't like it when you say I'm not human. Especially when _you're_ the one with inhuman abilities."

He stands up. "And _I_ don't like it when you act like you don't know what it's like to have regular emotions."

She stands up too, clenching her fists at her sides. "Well, I'm sorry my personality and the norm in the world I grew up in offend you, but the fact of the matter is that _you're_ hypocritically insulting me while _I'm_ simply acting the way regular Scientists do. And Scientists, in case you've forgotten, are supposed to be the only people still alive."

Austin rolls his eyes. "That isn't what pisses me off. What pisses me off is that I _know_ you feel things and I know you know _exactly_ what you're feeling, but you suppress all your emotions and hide behind your Scientist conditioning because you're _scared_."

"I've told you, emotions get in the way of scientific study and reasoning."

"What are you studying?! _Nothing_! You have no reason to block your humanity out here!"

"Why do you care?" she asks him.

"Because I feel like I'm talking to a freaking _robot_!"

Ally swallows. "Stop yelling. Someone will hear – "

"No! I'm gonna keep yelling because I'm _frustrated_!" Sparks fly off his hair. " _AHHHHHH!_ "

"This is why Scientists aren't supposed to allow our emotions to influence us," she says. "You're being irrational and irresponsible."

Austin groans in annoyance. "I can't do this anymore. I'm gonna go save my friend. With or without you."

He turns on his heel and walks out of the safety of the densely packed trees and into the open field ahead. When he gets about halfway across, she gives in and races after him.

* * *

 **so i've been super busy w college apps and friends and other things and i'm v sorry the next chapter will be better probably**


	12. Chapter 12

She walks through the woods a few feet behind him. She trains her eyes on the ground, jaw clenched, as their argument replays itself over and over in her mind. She tries to find where she was in the wrong; all she wanted was to make sure they didn't get caught. She crosses her arms and takes a few deep breaths.

When she finally manages to calm her anger and focus on something other than her fight with Austin, she trips on something and all the anger and frustration come rushing back. She clenches her fists and goes to kick whatever she tripped on, but she finds nothing there. She exhales and continues walking.

A few minutes later, she trips on something else. She stumbles forward and catches herself before she falls, but again she realizes that there was nothing on the ground for her to trip on except some grass.

She glances at Austin. He's still trudging forward through the woods. He hasn't talked to her or even looked at her since their fight almost an hour ago; for all she knows he doesn't even realize she's still with him.

The third time she trips, it's like someone placed their hands under her feet and tossed her up and forwards, but she wasn't ready for it. She stumbles again.

"Stop," she says, glaring at Austin's back.

The blonde stops walking, but he doesn't look at her. "Stop what?"

"You know what."

"No. I don't."

He keeps walking. She rolls her eyes and follows.

He manipulates the air around her a few more times to make it seem like she keeps tripping, but then he stops being subtle about it. He lifts her in the air for seconds at a time.

"Stop it!" she tells him, crossing her arms as she hovers about a foot off the ground. He finally turns to look at her, chewing on his lower lip. "Put me down." He shakes his head. "Austin, I'm serious," she says.

"Not yet," he says quietly. "I don't want you to walk away." She glares at him. "I'm sorry," he continues. "For what I said."

She lifts her chin defiantly. "I'm not."

"I – I know." She's gently lowered to the ground. "You don't have to be. You're right. I'm a hypocrite, and I know you care about Dez as much as I do. You're just trying to keep us safe so we can help him."

She nods, letting her arms drop to her sides, unsure of what to say.

"And you're not a robot. You do show your emotions, even though you try not to. It's just…in a different way than I'm used to. But you're a different kind of person than I'm used to, so I should've expected that."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, most people I know are more…expressive. You always have a calm face and a calm voice. But you have a few tells." He smiles a bit. "I can read you pretty well, all things considered."

"Tells? Like what?"

"Like when you're mad, your nostrils flare. And when you're confused or thinking hard about something, your eyebrows scrunch together. Your hands get fidgety when you're scared."

"Oh," she says lamely. Her brain feels like mush; he pays that much attention to her? She clears her throat, opening her mouth to accept his apology.

"And when you're trying to suppress whatever you're feeling, you start talking all scientific and detached," he continues. "Your eyes get all cloudy, like you're fighting with yourself in your mind, which I guess you are. You're fighting your emotions, yeah? Shoving them down so they don't influence you. It looks draining. Do you really like living like that?"

"I would rather dedicate my life to research and study than allow myself to become a prisoner of my own emotions," she tells him. Now that he's pointed it out, she can hear the detachment in her own voice.

"How do Scientists get married and have kids and raise families without emotions?"

"We're assigned a partner with whom we will likely create the healthiest children. Raising children is healthy for the parents, so they can have a better relationship with each other, and continuing the human race is a duty."

"So, if there's no emotion, do you guys just…send in your – "

She rolls her eyes. "We still have sex, Austin. A healthy sex life is beneficial to everyone."

"Oh." He blushes. "I guess I just thought – well, I don't know. Never mind."

"We've had a conversation like this before," she notes.

"What happens if someone _does_ let their emotions influence them?" he asks.

"It negatively impacts their work," she says. "It makes their relationships more difficult, although, I suppose, my generation is more inclined to act on their emotions than those before us. Perhaps I'm the odd one for being old-fashioned."

"But they're not, like, shunned by society?"

She raises an eyebrow. "No. There's no law saying we can't feel anything. It's just common knowledge that emotions do more harm than good in our way of life."

"Huh."

"Why are you so curious all of a sudden?"

"I'm just…trying to understand you, I guess. But if suppressing emotions is just to help your society run smoother or whatever, why are you still so adamant about not feeling anything when it's just us?" he asks, his eyes almost piercing hers.

"Because if I let my emotions influence me, it will no doubt negatively impact my ability to think logically about challenges we may face and possibly get us captured or killed." She can tell he isn't buying it. She's starting not to, either.

"Yeah, but you're smarter than anyone who could possibly pose a threat out here. Your worst is still gonna be better than their best."

Her heart flutters at the compliment, even though she's aware of its truth. She clears her throat. "I know. But I'd rather have a large advantage than a small one."

"Are you sure you're in a better state of mind focusing so much of your attention and energy suppressing your emotions than you would be if you just accepted them and stopped worrying about what you're feeling?" She opens her mouth, but he continues before she can defend herself. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like it's kinda killing you. I know it's exhausting, no matter what you say. No one can change their demeanor that quickly so often without it taking a toll."

"I'm fine," she says. "We should continue before we lose daylight."

She starts walking, but he catches her wrist. "The only times I've ever felt like I was seeing you – the _real_ you – have been when you were feeling something so strongly that you showed it, even for just a few seconds. The rest of the time, I feel like you're locked away in your own mind and not even here."

She pulls her wrist out of his hand, avoiding his sad, pleading eyes. Her chest contracts anyway. She hates that he has this effect on her. "I'm sorry you feel that way. But none of this has anything to do with saving Dez, which is why we're here to begin with."

"And what about that, huh? You let your feelings for Dez influence you to break the law by teaming up with a Magician and trying to save him."

"That's different. He was arrested for my disappearance, which he had nothing to do with."

"No. It's difference because those feelings are _safe_. You can justify them by hiding behind your reasoning."

"I'm not hiding," she snaps defensively. "I'm telling the truth."

"You're _hiding_ ," he insists.

"I wish you would let this go."

"And _I_ wish you would just be yourself all the time instead of locking her away until she breaks out and makes a mess of all the emotions you're keeping pent up in your head." He's getting frustrated. She continues avoiding his gaze, but she smells the smoke in the air. She tries not to be hurt by his words, but with each painful pang of her heart comes a whisper of _not good enough_.

"I'm being myself," she says. "Sorry to disappoint you." Although she tries to sound indignant, she can hear the pathetic insecurity dripping in her voice.

"Ally, no." His hand is under her chin and suddenly she's looking up at him. She closes her eyes and debates whether or not she should try to calm herself down. "You're not listening to me." His hands are on her cheeks now, gently; she isn't sure if the warmth she feels are from his hands or her blushing. _Hydrogen, Helium_ …it's not even worth it. "I know I'm far from perfect," he says. "And I'm not…I'm not saying that I am. Of course I'm not. And you're smarter than me, six hundred percent. But I know that you'll be so much happier, probably even _more_ focused, if you stop keeping up this constant façade that you don't feel anything." He pauses. "Ally, look at me."

She opens her eyes wordlessly and finds herself looking directly into his, so painfully close but so infinitely far away. She notices that they sparkle like the sand on a beach reflecting the sun's rays. Green and gold are swirling in the light brown; she thinks his eyes are where his magic is stored.

"I know we have to save Dez, and I know we're losing time," he says quietly, his eyes boring into hers almost painfully. "But I also know that you can't keep this up forever, and you're gonna snap sooner rather than later. I don't think it's safe to move forward until we figure this out."

She suddenly finds that she hates him. She hates his sparkly eyes. She hates his warm hands on her cheeks. She hates that he smells like the air right before it rains. She hates that his voice is like a soft summer breeze, relaxing her and warming her to the bone. She hates the way he's looking at her, like everything else in the world isn't even real, like she's the only thing he can see. She hates the pain she feels in her head, in her chest. She hates him for making a solid point.

As she looks at him looking at her, she comes to the painful realization that none of this is going to go away. No matter how much she suppresses these feelings, they're always going to be there, eating away at her, making her entire body ache. But maybe if she stopped resisting them, if she just accepted them, let them be, and moved on instead of dwelling on them and constantly reinforcing the walls she's built to keep them at bay, she'd be able to focus on more important things. Maybe she'd be able to relax. Just as quickly as she started hating him, the hatred disappears and she wants him so bad it hurts.

He's still watching her, patiently, as though he can see the gears turning in her mind as she thinks these things through. She wonders if maybe this wouldn't be so painful if she had just accepted her emotions from the beginning instead of letting them fester and grow stronger. She wonders if maybe she wouldn't feel so pathetic in her embarrassing longing for him.

She's done feeling like this. He's right: she's trapped herself in her own head. And she finally wants out.

So, throwing caution to the wind and disregarding any thoughts about the possible consequences of her actions, she throws her arms around him and kisses him.

The walls in her head come crashing down. The silent, focused state in which she's trained her mind to remain turns into chaos. It's loud, bursting, a cacophony of unidentifiable fragments of sound; but for once, there isn't a coherent thought to be found.

If he's surprised, she can't tell. He responds almost immediately, the fingers of one of his hands combing through her hair as he moves his hand from her cheek to the back of her head, effectively getting his fingers tangled in her curls. His other hand leaves her cheek – she misses its warmth – but then his arm snakes itself around her waist and pulls her flush against him, his hand pressed flat against her back.

He tastes like mint, and his lips are soft. She rests her hand on the back of his neck and tries to pull him closer to her, exhaling through her nose both the breath she was holding and all the tension that's been building up as she tried to avoid accepting all these feelings. Her lips part. So do his. She shivers.

Still holding her tight, he takes a few steps forwards, causing her to step back until she's conveniently pressed against a wall she's almost positive wasn't there before. He lets go of her, resting his hands against the wall on either side of her head and pressing himself closer to her.

Finally, she pulls away, leaning her head back against the wall and breathing heavily. His chest moves with hers as he takes in the much-needed oxygen as well. He dips his head down, his bangs brushing against her forehead, and presses a softer kiss to her lips. Then he tilts his head and starts kissing her along her jaw, down her neck. She inhales sharply and then sighs, letting out a breathy laugh.

Suddenly, the wall behind her disappears and she yelps as she falls to the ground. Austin falls on top of her, muttering a few curses. He rolls off of her, and she immediately misses his touch.

She finally opens her eyes, bringing a hand to her forehead as she tries to process everything running through her mind. Her hand drops to her swollen lips, still tingling. Then she drops her hand back on the ground at her side and stares up at the sky, so incredibly bright with a million colors as the sun sets. She laughs again, breathlessly, blissfully, finally free.

"Feeling better?"

She turns her head and meets Austin's beautiful, magical, sparkling eyes. His cheeks are flushed; his lips are swollen. He has a small, goofy smile on his face, and his eyebrows are raised knowingly.

"You knew I would do that," she realizes.

"You've been acting weird. And you _did_ ask to kiss me just last night."

"Why didn't you just say so?"

"Because you would've freaked out."

She sits up. The forest floor around them is completely covered in wildflowers, vibrant and almost glowing in the afternoon light. She looks over at him; he's sitting up now, too, and his cheeks are as red as some of the flowers.

"This isn't because of you," he says defensively, standing up and offering his hand to help her stand as well. She takes it. "You should know that."

"Of course not." She decides not to point out the blatant hypocrisy of his denying his feelings for her, even if he is joking.

"We should keep going," he decides. "Before it gets dark."

They start walking again. His hand finds hers, and their fingers intertwine. She hates the giddiness bubbling up inside her chest. But then she thinks about how good she feels, how free, and decides that she loves it.

* * *

 **heeheeheeheehee i promise some action will happen soon but i hope you liked this chapter anyway. i just wrote it all in one sitting and i'm v proud. anyway thanks for reading and happy halloween! also tell me what you guys are dressing up as! i'm being a chick-fil-a cow lol**


	13. Chapter 13

"Well, do you see anything?" she hears Austin call up from below her as she sits on a branch just high enough to peek over the tops of the trees and see the city.

"Yes," she calls back down to him. "We're almost there. And the sunrise is quite breathtaking." She dips her head back below the leaves and sees the blonde boy looking up at her, his head tilted, one eye closed and the other one squinting up at her. He gives her a thumbs-up and yawns.

She hops off the branch she's sitting on. Before she even starts freefalling, Austin waves his hand and catches her with the air around her, lowering her gently to the ground.

"We'll surely make it today with time to spare. Then we can hide until nightfall and save Dez," she tells him.

"Easy peasy."

"It'll be fine," she assures him. "Especially now that you seem to be a little more in control of your powers."

"You seem to forget what happened yesterday."

She shrugs innocently. "You were caught off guard by emotions you weren't exactly used to. When you need to, you'll be able to control your powers, no problem."

"You have a lot of faith in me for someone whose beliefs are all based on factual evidence."

"So you should probably believe me."

"Yeah, yeah." He wraps an arm around her as they walk, and she can't help the smile that forms on her face.

Ever since she kissed him and was finally honest with him (and more importantly, herself) about her feelings, she hasn't been able to fully stop smiling. She feels like a figurative weight has been lifted off her shoulders, even though she finds that it's often replaced by the literal weight of Austin's arm. But she likes it. And him.

She fell asleep in his arms last night, and that's when it all became truly real for her. The warmth of his body, his lips in her hair, his hands holding hers…she's never slept better in her life. "I quite like this," she had said into the darkness as she drifted off to sleep. "I quite like this, too," had been his half-asleep, mumbled reply.

Suddenly, she's pulled out of her thoughts by a loud cracking noise and Austin collapsing on the ground, pulling her with him.

"Austin?" she asks worriedly, sitting up. She sees a rock on the ground next to them, and she immediately searches Austin for injuries. The blonde hair on the back of his head is soaked red with blood.

Her eyes widen. She rips the sleeves off Austin's shirt and presses them to the wound. Then she rips off her own sleeves and applies more pressure, trying to stop the bleeding.

Before she can think of a plan, she hears something whistle past her ear. She looks in the direction the object came from and sees two familiar faces. The Telekinetic and Brawn they saved Daisy from.

She stands up, her jaw clenched angrily. "She isn't with us," she tells them. "You'll never find her."

"Oh, we don't care about the girl," the Telekinetic says. "We care about _revenge_."

The Brawn yanks a thick branch off the nearest tree and pounds it in his free hand like a club. He grins menacingly. Ally positions herself between the Magicians and the unconscious form of Austin on the ground.

"Is revenge really necessary?" she asks them. "I mean, it's such a waste of time and energy, and on just a silly Scientist and Nature Magician? Doesn't seem worth it to me."

"You really don't know nothin', do you, darlin'?" the Telekinetic says. "Nature Magicians are nothin' but trouble, tryin' to change the natural order and such. Killin' your boyfriend here would be doin' the world a favor."

"From where I'm standing, you two are much more trouble than him."

"And a _Scientist_ for our own personal use!" the Telekinetic muses, completely ignoring her. "We could just send you wherever we want to get _whatever_ we want! You'll be a great addition to the team."

"And she's pretty," the Brawn says, still pounding his tree branch club in his hand. "Can I smash them now?" He looks down at the short Telekinetic.

"Not yet."

Suddenly, Ally is forcefully thrust into the air, along with a bunch of grass and loose tree branches. The plants weave themselves together and tie themselves between two trees like a hammock, and she lands roughly inside it. She glares down at the grinning Telekinetic and then tries to look for a way to climb down.

The Brawn starts walking over to Austin, but suddenly the ground opens underneath him and seems to swallow him whole. Ally sees Austin open his eyes slowly, blinking a few times in an attempt to stay conscious.

The Telekinetic grunts in frustration and waves his hand. The Brawn's tree branch levitates off the ground where the Brawn was standing just seconds before and looks to be winding up for a swing at Austin.

"Austin!" she shouts, and leaps out of the hammock.

She starts freefalling and immediately regrets her decision. But before she can hit the ground, a gust of air gathers underneath her and shoots her towards the floating tree branch. She kicks it with all her might and the air under her starts to dissipate, lowering her shakily to the ground. The tree branch swings back thanks to the force of her kick and hits the Telekinetic on the side of the head. He crumples to the ground.

Ally scrambles to her feet and rushes over to Austin. "You're gonna be fine," she says breathlessly. "Let's get you out of here."

She pulls him to his feet and wraps his arm around her. She stumbles as far away from the Telekinetic as she can before Austin's weight is too much and she falls to the ground.

"Austin, you have to stay with me," she says, trying to keep her voice calm for him. "I need you to hold out until I think of a way to help you."

She notices a few tiny plants start growing in a circle around her. She looks at Austin. His eyes are closed, but his fingers are twitching.

"Don't waste your energy," she tells him quickly. Then she pauses. There are plenty of natural remedies for all sorts of ailments. Maybe a combination of these plants is supposed to help Austin's wound.

She starts pulling the leaves off all the plants and tears them into the tiniest pieces she can make. Then, she mashes the pieces together with her hands, and the water from inside the leaves makes them stick together in a little green ball. She bites her lip. "For once I don't know what I'm doing," she says. But Austin has slipped out of consciousness again.

She removes the soaked shirt sleeves from Austin's head and forms the green ball into the shape of his wound. She presses the ball against the bloody gash.

After a few minutes, she notices that the bleeding has slowed down. She also notices that Austin's veins are gradually starting to glow gold. She hopes that's a good thing.

A little while later, the bleeding has stopped and Austin seems to be stable. His bloodstream still seems to be full of liquid gold, but she wonders if that's just a sign of some sort of Nature Magician healing. A shift in his steady breathing grabs her attention, and she watches his eyelids flutter open. He sits up slowly, wincing and holding the back of his head, the gold in his veins fading.

"You should keep resting – "

Before she can finish her sentence, he leans forward and kisses her. It's the first time they've kissed since yesterday; she's caught off guard for a few moments before remembering to kiss him back. She closes her eyes, the warmth and adrenaline and emotions from their first kiss all rushing back to her like a tidal wave. He leans closer to her, and she grabs his face. His cheeks are warm and continue heating up; she imagines them being red as tomatoes.

Suddenly, a small gust of air pushes her towards him so she practically falls in his lap. He wraps ready arms around her, an audible sigh escaping his throat. She moves her hands into his hair and presses herself so close to him she can feel his pounding heartbeat. He hums against her lips almost inaudibly, which makes her wonder if he even realizes he's doing it. Then he pulls away and rests his forehead against hers, breathing heavily.

"We, um, we should probably…" She tries hiding how flustered she is. "I mean, you seem to be, um, fine, so we can keep going, or something – "

Without saying anything, he kisses her again, this time only for a couple of seconds before pulling away. She silently thanks him for saving her from embarrassing herself even more.

"Thank you," he tells her quietly.

"You're welcome," she squeaks, her heart pounding in her chest.

He stands up slowly and wobbles a bit, holding his head and closing his eyes. She scrambles to her feet and holds his arm to keep him steady.

"If you need to keep resting – "

"No, I'm okay."

"You probably have a concussion. Maybe – "

"Ally, I'm okay. Promise."

She presses her lips together in a tight line, but she knows that nothing she says will be able to convince him to rest any longer. He starts walking before she can say anything else, and she has no choice but to go on wordlessly beside him.

* * *

 **hey guys it's been a minute or two since i posted the last chapter, huh? i promise i'm trying my best but i'm so busy and i know i say that every time but i really am like i have a social life and everything! but idk if you wanna chat or nag me about updating or just see a bunch of raura gifs and pics of ross and hear about my life you should totes follow me on twitter lol my handle is the same as my pen name: ausllydawmoon**

 **please follow me and talk to me i wanna be friends**

 **anyway thanks for reading and i would say that i'll try to update faster and make the next chapter better but we all know i'm not going to do either of those things lol**


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